Before I go on with my writing project I feel that I need to acknowledge the reaction I have gotten from the work so far. My last post has seemingly scared and alarmed people. The expression of my despair was taken as a cry for help and a representation of my entirety. It defined me somehow or at least left me open to other people’s definitions.
My aim with the work is complex. This blog is a part of an artist website. The work of this artist, my work, has always strived to be honest. It is a platform on which I place feelings, in the form of word and imagery. I then curate these feelings. Through this placement I learn. Through the exorcism and expression, my invisible feelings and thoughts are transformed into texts/poems/lists. They then look back at me. My final understanding comes from reading them back to myself.
When I read ‘How do I know?’ I read a well-rounded representation of a post-traumatic stress episode, written by a person who is fully aware of what is happening, while simultaneously feeling it. A splitting happens whereby I am both at the bottom of the pit and standing above looking in, trying to get the two bodies together again. This is something that I realise is rather loaded and disturbing to the outside eye. I believe that it is only loaded and disturbing because what I talk about is tabooed in our society. We are trained to hide what is shameful and only show ourselves in the best light. On some level I agree with this. I agree that one should strive to be graceful but what I have always ran into as a problem with this approach is that we are reactive and active beings. My desire to hide my shame and project perfection only kept me in my shame and imperfection. It made me feel stuck and passive. Passivity was always linked to Aggression. One balanced the other.
With my chosen Activity or Activeness I have managed to separate myself from my issues. I have walked away and removed whatever was unjust. The removal is the first step. Moving on is a much more complicated affair. I need to document it all. In my small way, with my singular experience, I want to spread awareness on these issues. It may look like a personal experience, and it is, but I can assure every reader that there are many people on the planet feeling the same complicated, layered, shameful, positive, negative, angry, loving, confused feelings. The difference does not seem to be the feelings. The difference is in the expression, or the lack of it.
With this outlet I wish to create a chronological body of work, documenting my process. My process at the moment being my own life, past and present. The artwork that brought me to this point was an exploration of self through ritual and ceremony. The ritual and ceremony, as well as the poetry to some degree, were necessary to make a big part of my life real. A lot happened that was hidden by others or simply not acknowledged. I set out to give my experience recognition. Starting in 2009, I worked through to 2013 with written and visual work that slowly organised my life. My aim was to understand and cleanse myself, getting to a point where I could move on from my old patterns and create a new life. A life that was already honoured enough, and so did not need the ceremony and ritual. In 2014 I dropped out of what had become my comfort zone and relocated. I became invisible again. I reverted to childhood, learning it all for the first time (again). My theory was put into action. I documented it all. The culture shock. The difficulty learning. My gratefulness. Overcoming my hurdles. My happiness.
Now it’s 2016 and this two year adventure came to a dramatic crash, as my son died. I was struck by my own naivity on the matter of life. I had genuinely believed that I had had enough punishment and now things were going to go smoothly, because surely there is some sense of fairness in the world. I am very glad to say that I have now accepted that as being bull shit. I can now look at things even more closely. Through obtaining all the information surrounding his death, I got to know him. He is now a whole person in my life. His place was found.
As long as I am alive, things can go wrong. As long as I am alive, I am open to what this world can give and take away from me. To keep myself alive I need to be open. And so I am. Open.