i’m currently writing an artist statement for an upcoming presentation of new work, which has me taking a closer look at the subtle shifts in awareness, focus, and intention that have been helping my practice and work evolve over the last year. the following are a few notes i brain dumped early this morning while sorting through what i’d like the statement to ultimately say:
the more healing work i do through therapy, re-parenting, and my art practice, and the more healing i experience as a result over time, the more i understand that healing is a fluid, dynamic set of macro and micro interconnected processes that move us through a multitude of existences and experiences.
healing…always defies my expectations, no matter how high or low i’ve placed them.
notes from the healing circle (III), acrylic on Belgian linen, 2022
allowing these processes' ebbs and flows to fortify me in new ways without hardening me into a fortress is always a delicate, exacting procedure.
healing from personal & generational trauma and dysfunction is a lifelong process but what if amidst the periods of unearthing, undoing, de-conditioning, transmutation, and releasing, there are also periods of integration and embodiment that include ease, rest, and actually living on the new foundation that’s being built?
what if breaking cycles and healing ourselves isn’t just about ensuring those coming after us are living in more freedom…what if living in the present is the purpose of healing work? what if the whole point of healing is to allow ourselves to receive right now what those before us weren’t afforded space to? what if our job is to give those coming after us even more room to experience the transformative, healing power of reciprocity?
notes from the healing circle (II), acrylic on Belgian linen, 2022
what if healing isn’t just work but also experimentation, living, play, shapeshifting, wrinkling time & timeline jumping, and evolution? what if the future we envision is not external, a far-out point on the horizon, but internal; a scribe writing new narratives that are imprinted on us at a cellular level so that we can step into new realities when we place our feet on the floor each morning? what if healing is not a destination to reach but an experience to embody fully, imperfectly? What if it’s about radical self-acceptance and compassionate self-awareness divorced from the compulsion to fix?
i do not desire for my identity as a healer to become an albatross around my neck. if my healing does not translate into experiencing expansive freedom in my everyday, imperfect life, then what is the point?