Emotional Flashbacks Don’t Have to be Destabilising

Mauve Daisies 2020, photograph
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Connection versus Despair and the Winner is… Connection

Drawing despair – work in progress – pigment pen on paper
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Square Dots #1: sexism and dinero

Square Dots #1
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 in
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Locus of Evaluation Part 1

Perhaps the most fundamental condition of creativity is that the source or locus of evaluative judgement is internal.

Carl Rogers (1998)

When I was thirteen my art teacher told me I wasn’t good enough to do art at ‘O’ Level and I believed him. Perhaps what he actually meant was, “you enjoy making art too much. You don’t take it seriously.” I used to sing and make noises and talk during my mark making. I once drew a still life that had the words, “ahhh, shit!” in it (I drew what I saw). Perhaps he disliked my enthusiasm because he’d lost his own. I didn’t take art seriously. It was fun. Until he told me I wasn’t good enough. I stopped making art and began journalling instead.

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Being With Trauma Memories Without Shame

Painting black lines and dots on this work in progress abstract painting helped me to process some of my feelings about the childhood sexual abuse memory that emerged. Using arts is a way of expressing something creatively that cannot be expressed in words. The process of using arts can be soothing.
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