Yesterday night my sister and I drove home from my nephew's 3rd birthday. It was almost an hour, so we talked about the party and the people and projects we were working on. My sister writes Fan Fiction, she currently works on a Devil's Minion fic, and I like to draw an do more visual art.
I made her a foldable Zine inspired by her fan fiction with collages of Daniel and Armand, which were a lot of fun to make!
These are two of the images i made for her (she loved them lol)
Though this we landed on the topic of mental health and trauma. We both survived a lot of BS in our childhood/teenage-years and she is currently in therapy, working through some of it. She told me how she sees and includes stuff from her past in her art and how it helps her to write about it. How she now has the space and capacity to actually make art. She has written a novel's worth of fiction in just a few weeks.
We love Van Gogh, he is our favourite artist. He created art all his life, but especially, when he was mentally healthier than at other times. And i think that's something, that easily gets lost in the narrative of his death. He is the perfect poster boy for the "tortured artist", who made masterpieces because he suffered and he had to die tragically for his art and life to have meaning. When in actuality, he created art despite it. He was mentally ill, yes, but his most beautiful and well known pieces were painted when he got help.
I continually need to remind myself of that fact. The myth of the "tortured artist" is exactly that; a myth. We create not because we suffered or experienced trauma, we create despite it. We don't need to suffer to make art.
I experienced trauma, but despite this I still create, I knit, I draw, I craft, I write. I put myself and my trauma into my art, despite what happened and what will happen.
Sometimes we need space from our trauma, we need to feel safe, to finally create again. And that is okay. It shows we survived and found the drive to work through it. To make Art despite it.
I love to create and I will, for as long as I am alive. Sometimes, it just takes a few months to get to that save space. And that is okay!
Have fun! Create! Write, draw, cross stitch, compose, knit, sew, dance, sing, what ever comes to mind, make it! And give yourself the space to do so, no matter how long it might take.
