Art as an expression and representation of emotional processing

The first piece I ever created was raw.  I didn't do it for it to be perfect.... it was an expression.  A way of expressing what my heart knew but what I couldn't communicate with myself let alone the world.

Horses are the most powerful yet peaceful animals.  So intuitive and deep. Aloof but deeply emotional.  So they became my subject for this piece.

One Sunday afternoon, I was going through a lot at the time.  I'd left a relationship of 10 years a few years previously which incidentally was a very abusive relationship.  I rebuilt my life from nothing.  I'd had to start again so I bought a house, renovated it completely and created what would become my safe space.  I hadn't processed any of what I experienced because I didn't have the knowledge to understand the depth of what had happened to me.  I was running from the pain at this point.  There was so much pain sitting just under the surface of everything.  It was overwhelming and consuming.  I knew I didnt want to shut my heart down completely and feel nothing.  So I needed to find a way to process what I didn't know was even there.

This is not a sad story... I promise!  It's a reminder that hope lives in the darkest of places.

I started to realise that what was going on at a deeper level was trying to communicate with me through creativity and I could start to understand what was going on in my heart without having to submerge myself in the pain of it all.

So I let myself try.  I let my heart speak and this is the piece I created, from nothing.  

It explores the relationship between youth and experience.  There is a light around youth but it is only through experience that we have the texture and depth to start to translate the depth of feeling.  To add context.

It also delves into the relationship between us as a we are now, and the younger you who resides in every decision we take or don't take.  The unmet needs. The pain.  The love.  The grief and often the shame hiding behind all that.  Not in a negative depressing way, but that it can transform into something beautiful once you start to make your peace and journey through acceptance.

My work is deep and I know it's not for everyone.  It has meaning and not everyone is at the point where they are ready or able to connect with it.  But it's connection that feeds our soul.  And to connect you have to be real and to be real you have to do the deep, messy, uncomfortable work of getting you know who you are beyond the mask you put on every day.

I'm still a work in progress.  Aren't we all?  Recovering.  Learning.  Making space for the messy, crazy thing we call life!