Soul Mosaic

Why show abuse and trauma in art? Why show it to another? Why SEE it?

The very direct version? For the world…and for me and anyone else who was abused.

Let me start with “for the world.”

For the world – the moments NOT in the family photo album

There is a raw reality that exists behind words like abused or molested. Those words are relatively “clean.” Cerebral. They tell another that “this” happened, but they do not convey the real horror of what “this” was.

They do not describe what I had to live through in each of those moments, for thousands of moments. They do not show the true images of what happened behind closed doors. Images that weren’t memorialized in the family photo albums. Those words don’t tell the “other side” of the story.

So, seeing those moments of horror in living color on a canvas gives that story a level of reality that words just can’t match.

My husband, who has watched me paint for every one of these pieces and saw the episodes of abuse emerge in paint, said as much. “I always knew about these things from what you told me, and I believed you. But seeing those moments makes them real in a whole different way. If he were standing here before me right now, I don’t know that I could actually restrain myself from going at him.”

The paintings show things that maybe society has never thought about in relation to “abuse,” things it doesn’t understand, or things it doesn’t want to look at.

And I want society to understand, because that is the only way this can change, and those harmed can be fully loved.

I want society to see what “childhood sexual abuse” really means. For me. For that young child that I was. For anyone out there who has been through it and isn’t understood by anyone around them. And to answer all of those who demand to know, “When are you going to get over this and leave it behind? Why can’t you just forget it already and move on?”

Intention

People may question the motives of artists and writers who are candid and open in sharing these experiences.

I will state totally emphatically that the intention for the art in this book is NOT to shock, traumatize, or titillate.

It is actually a heartfelt attempt to reach for that deepest human need – connection – by communicating what that reality was.

Notes from the shower

I am one of those people who, when I get in the shower, relax and let everything slip from my mind. Which is precisely what my subconscious is waiting for!

The minute the mind goes blank and focuses on the snuggly warmth of hot water cascading over my skin, the subconscious starts talking. Some mornings just a word or two, and other mornings…a mile a minute. Everything from items for the grocery list, to what I need to write, connections for things I have been trying to figure out, or flashes of insight out of nowhere about a long forgotten question.

Aware that I can’t trust my memory to remember any of these things in my head until after my shower, I needed a way to capture them. Then I remembered that the nature researchers at the museum I taught at use waterproof field notebooks and pens to capture observations. So, I bought myself a package of “write in the rain” memo pads and a waterproof pen. And voila! I no longer have to worry about remembering.