Have you ever done something you didn’t think you could do? Tried something that you were pretty sure you would fail at? That’s what I did last night at my artist friends, Shari and Gloria’s house. They have an occasional event they call the Blue Sky Gathering and last evening they had invited another artist, Dana Hatalsky to share her art with us, and to have her guide us in creating something ourselves. She set the stage ahead of time by writing, “My art is based on my faith and the idea of Creating with the Creator. I use materials from nature, (leaves, seed pods, sticks) and I look forward to sharing with you the beauty and Divinity in Nature.”
When the evening was over, as I was juggling my purse in one hand and my newly created treasure in the other, I told Dana, “No four year old has ever been as proud of herself as I am of myself right now.” But as art therapists knows, it wasn’t just the finished product – the arrangement of the bark, the money coins from the “money tree,” the pod of milkweed bursting from the center of the canvas, which we sprayed with hair spray to keep it from bursting all over my living room when I got it home.
It was the process I went through to arrive at this place of pride and joy in my accomplishment. It was what I had to overcome to allow myself to even begin it. As I mentioned, I did not have the slightest belief that I could create something of beauty, After all, I’m not a visual artist. But as I listened to that thought in my head, it sounded a lot like what people tell me when I invite them to dance, (“I’m not graceful”) or sing, (“I can’t carry a tune.”) or tell a story, (“I don’t like to talk in front of people”). In InterPlay, where we do all those expressive arts, we often blame the fact that most of us have seen and heard world-class artists in all fields of art and we back away from that comparison before we begin. For encouragement, we remind ourselves that folk art, or the art of regular people, is the way communities have lived their lives together, using their birthright practices of dancing, singing and telling stories, to mourn their losses and celebrate their joys.
In thanking Dana for this opportunity, I mentioned my work around the theme of the Art of Grieving, and we spoke a bit about what the arts offer someone in the midst of an episode of grief and loss. Beginning to create something new becomes reassuring when you are coming from a place of endings. When life has taken something from us, art making offers a place to take charge and craft the story or the object the way we want it to be presented. It’s often satisfying to find order in the messiness of life. Accessing our creativity and following our creative impulses means we have a way into our discomfort and dis-ease, and then, when the piece is finished, the story ended, art making provides a way out, for now.
What’s your experience with making or doing art?
Sheila
