This is no easy pursuit
Hunting for what is still not there
Each time rebuilding
On barren land
Ground up
At times
Confident and sturdy
At times
Frail and discouraged
Repeated motions
The pieces keep tumbling apart
Working my way through a hopeful language
“I’ll know better next time”

Working sculpturally was one of the surprises Art Therapy offered me

In my previous work as a graphic artist my work tended to mostly be 2-dimensional with interactive elements with the viewer. But in the therapeutic context, I always needed more depth. More complexity. More spatial texture. More inside pulling out, outside dropping in.

Sculpture was a language I needed to explore my experience.

This piece was exploring my physical and mental experience of saying ‘No’ in the context of an unhealthy relationship. I had no direction starting out. I went through piles of photographs and texts ripped out from old books. Texts on ‘Hunting’ and images of trees and land stood out for me.
From there I began building and layering. A physical building up for the sake of mentally and emotionally breaking things down.

The sculpture collapsed many times during the process. It spoke to my actual experience of resistance. It was fragile, unsure and unfamiliar.

The falling apart matters just as importantly as the putting together, you see..

To find and to receive touch as a form of nourishment against the mindlessness, the carelessness and the neglect we impose on our body is no ordinary find.

I neglected my body. I ignored my body. I was careless with my body.
I tried to fit it into the narrowness that I was made to believe about myself. The contours of my body altered as it was caving in. I held so much within me, yet my body was hollow.

I always had what it took to offer my body to others - in service, in love, in work, in presence. But I didn't have it in me to offer it what it needed. 'I can't nourish you at this moment' was a dialog that lasted for months.

And yet, something in me knew I needed to seek touch. A kind other than what I was allowing it. Something to trigger the senses back into connection. Something to remind me, to confront myself, to make me fall back into this being as a whole, and not as severed parts.

A vigorous massage.
A bloodied piercing - even pain can feel glorious to a numbed-out body.
A friend quietly finding possibility within the wounds through henna.

Your whole body is voice. Find someone who can find that voice in the moments you can't.