Letting Go of Hurt Through Art

Earlier this week, I thought it would be good to organize and clean my studio space. I came across my first art journal that got me through a pretty intense period of healing, but I had forgotten about it. 

That forgetting is something. The journal sits on the shelf, and the pain sits there with it, outside of me. It's a reminder that it has somewhere to live that isn't my heart.

An open art journal where raw handwritten words surface through layers of black paint, part of an emotional art journaling practice for processing grief and pain.

I have been holding onto so much since publishing my book. The depression, the anxiety, a new job. A major transformative period of my life that I'm still moving through, just not as severely. It's almost like I've been allowing myself to suffer, in some twisted weird way. And it's too much to say with words. But through the art I can get it out. These notebooks are meant for that. Not to sit and admire, but to know, at some conscious and subconscious level, that these emotions are sitting on a shelf outside of me.

It's through this art that I'm able to heal. Not by talking about it, but by feeling it and putting it on the page.

My most recent video was a stretch for me. Normally what's written beneath my entries stays private. This one is a little more raw and not as put together as the others, but that's kind of the point. This art isn't always meant to be aesthetically pleasing. It's supposed to be messy and unpolished, the way emotions are. They don't fit into a tidy box. 

You can watch it here.