Shaken

Coping with a trauma

Trigger Warning: This essay can trigger readers. If you would like to skip this essay and see my art for the week, feel free to scroll down to the pictures at the end of this post.

I’ve spent the last few months in a depression that can be divided into thirds: one part attributed to domestic/world events, another part to my own past traumas, and the last part due to a shocking incident close to home.

Recently, in a house near where I live – a house I’ve walked by many times – a man tortured and killed his girlfriend.

I found out about the murder before the news did. When I was driving to pick up my daughter from school, I saw the yellow tape around the house and five police cars, lights off, engines off, parked in the driveway and on the street in front of the house. Immediately shaken, I prayed for the deceased and concentrated on getting to my daughter’s school safely.

Apparently, the murderer, who was immediately arrested, had tried to kill the victim only a month or two before.

I cannot bear to look at the many flowers and messages accumulating on the curb in front of the house. And I couldn’t bear to hear that flurry of helicopters above my neighborhood.

And then I realized that I – oblivious to what was unfolding the day of the murder – was happily oil painting on that very day. Yes, creating art while someone was destroying a human life.

I wish I could say, I’m handling this as well as possible. But I am not.

I am not okay, I will tell my psychotherapist.

As I write this post, the principal of my daughter’s high school just emailed our community that a freshman has recently died unexpectedly.

Honestly, I wonder, why create artwork at all when violence dirties the world? Or when a young, promising teen just dies?

What can art do to improve the world?

Turns out, a lot.

The Photograph

The recent murder had worn me down to the point that I lost interest in creating art.

Until I saw them. The tulips.

At the local grocery store.

As people hurried past them, I stopped and took a photo. I decided that I would try to oil paint them. Flowers aren’t exactly my strong suit, but, I thought, why not try?

The orange and yellow flowers at the end of this essay are my first attempts. I mistakenly tried to do too much with this floral painting right away, instead of holding onto my patience and thinking of the work in terms of layering over time.

But painting the flowers led me to want to finish my most recent landscape painting. I took a substantial break between paintings, as I felt depleted.

I felt more relaxed finishing up the final landscape. And this gave me some peace, so I aptly named the painting Peace.

My first attempt at painting the tulips on white canvas. I tried to create too much detail too quickly, rather than being patient and allowing the process to take more time.

With a gray background, I did some flower correcting, and used loose brushstrokes to create the orange and yellow tulips. It still needs work, but it’s a start.

Completed painting titled Peace, oil on canvas, 11” x 14.” I added reflections of some of the background trees, as well as some bright brushstrokes in the foreground.