How can we use art as a vessel to detect and direct our own abstractness?
As many things; art is something I find interesting. Most of all, to create it. I like to explore the shapes, the sounds, and the connections that appears when fully surrendering to the first line or the first note, unknowingly about the outcome. Knowingly only of the possibilities.
I begun my art-practice when I was 6 years old. It begun with the Violin. As a musician I learned that following a given structure was not my strongest side, though when I transferred from violin to piano — my ability to recognize melody enchanted my curiosity.
I did not have a perfect pitch, absolutely not.
But I found something that made sense for me; I was able to put my understanding of the multitude together as different pieces. Each tone were like a building block, a puzzle piece — and I could construct the puzzle as I wanted it to become.
Through this I experienced my first conscious understanding of what flow ment for me.
Some days were messy, and others were calm.
Some pieces got messed up, and others found me at infinite imperfection.
Some pieces got messed up, and others found me at infinite imperfection.
Throughout my journey of getting to know these off-road approaches, I was indulging in visual creative practices too. Ceramics, sewing, and painting to name a few.. I didn’t find myself a master, but I knew how these practices made me feel. These practices sat off a vessel for my thoughts and feelings to emerge.
I paused my creative practices for a good while. Actually for years. It was a part of my childhood, safely vaulted in my memory. Protected from the world. Protected from my mid-teenage tantrums...
It felt like my energy stagnated little by little. Like life left me, I left me. My off-road journey took a new turn. I had no clue.
I eventually begun scribbling in a notebook — trusting it with some of the words, shapes, and colors. The piano returned as well.
I experienced that the pause had made space for my creative approach to develop beyond my own comprehension.
And it was my responsibility to allow the energies space enough to get into motion.
I got a set of paint for christmas the year after I had turned 19 years old. It was Aquarelle, and I fell deeply into my first 4 pieces of recovering parts of myself that I felt were hidden in a universe far far away, deep deep within.
Before I continue, I want to share how I view the word recovery. We often hear it in relation to becoming well after injury or illness. Yet I think we hold the rights and powers to recover parts of ourselves throughout our whole life’s, without having to resonate with dis-ease.
Anyway..
Throughout the next years I curiously built space for my creative practices. Not a practice of making the most beautiful faces or real life visuals — but uncovering the essence of my own energetic resonance. Through words, through colors and shapes, and through sound.
As I turned 22 I dove deeper into art-therapy and creative studies. At 23 I moved through the required studies to hold certification as a Healing Artist. These experiences pulled me further into two years of consistent self-healing, devoted recovery, and creative work.
The understanding of my mental, emotional, and physical well-being was immediately connected to my creativity, unpacking through words, through colors and shapes, and through sound. It had always been this way, naturally. The difference was now I knew how I could use these tools to illuminate and detect.
My first self-healing practices looked something like this:
How do I feel emotionally? My answer became a blue wavy line, with a tale, and dots around. How do I feel mentally? A new line just beneath, different color, another shape. How do I feel physically? The same thing happened here.
I was curious.. how could I unpack? How could I decipher these blueprints of my states of being?
Through these blueprints, I was capable of setting verbal intentions for each healing-session. And further direct my energy.
I learned that it was easier for me to interpret my abstract blueprints than to move directly into words and intentions from my feeling. These blueprints became a bridge through which I accessed myself.
As the seasons went and I continued developing my practice, the answers to my questions begun intertwining. I could experience that my energetic bodies fell into place with each other, I got to witness it visually. One line unlocking the other. Like keys, like doorways.
I used, and still use the blueprints as subjects for meditation.
Active meditation is when I constuctively create and Passive meditation is when I hold room to listen for what the creations have to offer.
These two do reflect as metaphorical footsteps throughout my processes.
These two do reflect as metaphorical footsteps throughout my processes.
Through this I now hold an understanding of how the energy that I create through; is mirrored in my art. For some it is accessible, for others not. Some resonates, others not. And that’s beautiful. But most importantly, it motivates me to continue cultivating, deepening, and widening my own understanding… and expressing it!
I feel thankful for continuing these journeys, these key-hunts, and for indulging into these channels of information that art is. I feel thankful for recognizing these pieces as energetic blueprints, eternally available. And I feel thankful for my community of healing artists, the ones that have been guiding, lifitng, and supporting us into recognizing our own wholeness, for encouraging continued collective and individual evolution.