this is why i do art.

My hands need to take a part in the handling of my emotions.  Sadness and frustration flow through the grasp of my fingertips around a paintbrush. There is something quite meditative about curving paint on a canvas when your mind won’t stop running in circles. 

 

The marathon in my mind exhausts my system, but I am kept awake by an itch that refuses to leave my body.  Originally settling under my first layer of skin, the itch has burrowed deeper and deeper over the years.  I want to scratch at it until my nails peel back and my purpled and bloodied flesh is no longer recognizable.  No matter how much I try to ignore it, I may never rid myself of this desire to rip myself apart from the inside out.  That is when I turn to paint.  And pens. And poetry.

 

Pens to preserve my poetry that provides what my paint cannot.

 

Words have proven to compliment to my artwork in ways that often surprise me.  Although one does stand on its own without the other, words and images have such a powerful effect, cohesively working together to draw our deepest connections to the forefront of our minds.   

 

The visual representation of my poems and my paintings may evoke a guttural response or an urge to turn away, but that is perfectly okay. Discomfort is a feeling we, as humans with defense mechanisms that have built up over the course of our lives, try to evade unconsciously. I’ve never found this to be the case for myself.  I actively pursue a visual representation of pain, struggle, and discomfort through direct and overwhelming dramatization because of the need to relieve that itch lodged so deep within me.

 

Blood that is in excess or eerily too red, skin that has been breached or starved to stretch a little too tightly over bones, and the bending of bodies in ways it is not meant to bend are what I do.  I have never been the kind of artist who produces “pretty” artwork. These images do not traditionally call on feelings of security or safety; they evoke discomfort.  Yet, beauty is still found in our ability to feel a full range of emotions, including this push away from comfort.  I have this need to confront it, drag it out, understand it. 

 

I refuse to turn away.