Creativity and sensitivity often go hand-in-hand, and artists are, perhaps stereotypically, considered to be a bit more in touch with their feelings. In my case, I've always been a Highly Sensitive Person who has enjoyed expressing those emotions through drawing.
I'm not good at naming my emotions a lot of the time. I'll know I feel "bad" or "good," but I have a harder time knowing whether "bad" means "angry," or "sad" until I spend a good deal of time thinking about it. Identifying those emotions faster and more accurately is something I'm working on, because I think it would be useful to know. Emotions are a form of intelligence, and I like to learn.
Therapy is a big part of this education for me. Depression hit me in my young adulthood and having a therapist was integral to helping me spelunk into my brain and figure out what was going on. The artwork above was my attempt to explore how therapy felt to me at first, like carrying a small light into a deep, dark cave and uncovering little bits at a time. Visually, I wanted to make the cave entrance obvious and the fact that it was someone's head a little more subtle. I'm pleased with the self-portrait to the left, the stairs that suggest a spinal column, and the various rocks and flora around the cave entrance that hearken to brain matter without making it gross. This isn't meant to be gory!
Someone purchased the original painting earlier this year and I was so happy that she treasured the meaning as much as I did. It's validating knowing this feeling isn't limited to myself.
It's about time I make an update to this one, because after years of experience in this cave, the experience is a bit different, more like having made a home in the little cave entrance and systematically boring deeper into the rock for valuable ores.
If you're someone who likes having deeper knowledge about things, you might be happy to know this is the first of a series of blog posts where I talk more about specific pieces of art in my gallery, just for fun :) I hope you'll return to keep reading. Until next time, make today a good one!