About 6 months ago I was really struggling as a parent. I felt like every day was unbearably hard and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Yes, I have two young kids but I know plenty of people with more kids than me that seemed to be handling things just fine. As I was going through this time I also kept asking myself why do I keep doing this art stuff? What am I trying to accomplish with it? Am I helping anyone? Does it matter? One day I was reading about one of my great grandmothers. She died when I was very young and all I remember about her is that I thought she was mean. ‘A Mean Cuss’ would be the exact phrase I would think of when anyone talked about her. Over the years I have learned different bits and pieces about her life from other family members. She was a widow with 4 young kids, the oldest being my grandfather who was 8 when his dad died. She lived and worked on their family farm to support her family during the Great Depression. They lived in the deserts of Nevada, with the heat and the dust and the nothingness that comes with it. She didn’t put up with anyone else’s crap because she didn't have time for it. Reading about her life and the challenges she went through as a single mother resonated with me in a different way than they had when I read her stories before. I wondered how she did it, were there family members there to help her? My life isn't that hard so how did she keep going when things were hard for her? The only real answer I came up with was, she didn’t have a choice. She had to keep going so her kids could eat. She couldn’t take breaks because there wasn’t anyone around to help her. She did what she had to do. I think about that sometimes with a lot of older generations, how there are these feelings or ideas that people make things work because if they didn’t then we wouldn’t be able to hear about their stories. These thoughts lead me to other thoughts. Thoughts about mental health, emotional healing, and how over the years these things are coming to light so people can learn how to cope with the array of life challenges and emotional struggles that we face. I thought, you know, had I gone through some of the things my grandmother had gone through, yeah, I would have been a mean person too. Probably even ‘A Mean Cuss’. There wasn’t any time to process life events or traumas because life had to keep going if you wanted to keep surviving. So many more thoughts came and went. One day after having another terrible day with the kids I told my husband to leave me alone and I went to paint. It was a messy and ugly painting, the kind you throw away when you are done because it’s awful but you need to get things out. All the pain, all the stress, all the frustration and tiredness that comes with being a parent. This was another moment that solidified for me the healing that art can bring especially for me.
We all have different ways of coping with our stress and disappointments. This just happens to be mine. But why? And where does it come from? And what does it matter? At some point, as I was painting I thought about my great-grandmother and I felt like somehow she was there. Saying things to me like, ‘You can do this, I’ll help you, you can do hard things too.’ I’ve always felt a closeness to my grandmothers. At different times I felt them helping me throughout my life. I kept painting over the next several days and weeks and every time I did I would feel this flow of energy, almost like a flow of strength, love, stamina, and calm. It felt like it was from not just my great-grandmother but also all the women in my family who had ever been mothers. It felt like I was gaining strength from them in a very tangible way. As I was going through this process I wondered if they were helping me because somehow I was helping them. Creating art, making beautiful things, learning how to manage my range of emotions, all things that they maybe weren’t able to experience. Could it be possible to help them heal their pain while they were healing mine? Through my art? I admit that on some levels this doesn’t make any logical sense. But in a spiritual light, it made all the sense in the world. Painting and creating art might always feel like a selfish endeavor. But if it helps me to keep going, to keep feeling human, to keep myself level-headed, if it helps me to better understand my pain and possibly to even feel connected to and strengthened by my foremothers, then isn't that enough to make it matter? It's a gift to be able to create art, to heal, to find meaning in it. It's a gift to know my history and to learn from it. It's a Gift to Spend Time With Loved Ones.
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Oh Hey! it's me, AmyThese are stories about my art, experiences I've had in my career, and some other fun things. I will probably overshare, sometimes I can't help it. Enjoy! Archives
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