From the confident brush

The Freebirth of Venus
(Gifted; copies available)

The waves part to reveal her, unclothed, reborn of the tumult around her. The moon looks on, proud of what the girl has accomplished, proud of her strength and resilience in this harsh sea, prouder still that she has the sense to set the dove of peace free so that she may work on finding her own.

I painted this for my therapist L, who has been here for me for just under four years now. She is truly my guide and my protector. The moon shows a deep trust and appreciation in the girl's actions and existence, and this is consistently what L shows me. She has never lied to me, never hurt me, never given me any reason not to trust her, and finally I am starting to, warily, but increasingly. L is someone who will not lead me astray.

From the peaceful brush again

Shadowed land
(Gifted; copies available)

From the peaceful brush

The hopeful quiet
(Gifted; copies available)

From the empowered brush

Over the Sea
(for sale)

I drew this some time ago and just finished painting it. The most notable thing to me is the wisteria bush (purple flowers that look like grapes)-- it is alive on the side that she has passed by. And she, dressed in yellow, is the sun that is missing from the picture. So it's not so much about progress as it is about the life within her.

From the windswept brush

With the wind
(Sold! Copies available)

Choosing the promise that the life that springs from underneath her socked, protected feet holds, she trudges away from the edge. She knowingly smiles at the instability those tempting waves hold, and releases the bluebird from her hand, offering it opportunity. To me, there is a silence about the scene, perhaps because no words are needed.

From the ungrounded brush

Into the rush
(Gifted; copies available)

When I showed this painting to my nutritionist, H, she was struck by the faceless body diving from the boat into the deep end of the ocean. This is very much what I have been doing lately with my symptoms, focusing on my body and forgetting who I am in favor of control of the ED. The bluebird soars over the scene, narrating the crescendos with its outsider's eye.

From the morbid brush

The banks

I sketched this painting instinctively, almost deliriously, and painted it in just as detached a state of mind, though it speaks volumes about my mental state. Soaked, the girl crawls the bank of a deadened world. The water is saturated with colors, deep without ready clarity, and the burned out land proves to be just as complex; just because it is dead does not mean that it is straightforward. The bluebird draws the girl's attention to the overwhelming reaches of the tree with its tire swing, a sullen reminder of what came before: the liveliness of childhood, the color of simplicity.

From the cacophonous brush

In the din you'll hear a bird...
(Sold! Copies available)

In the roar of the wind and sea, the girl conducts the scene, pulling and rising the waves and wind to untwist the vines. In this, the bluebird is freed, singing over the busy scene and drawing attention to his distant goal of the bramble on another cliff. What else grows on that new shore is unknown, yet the bird still heads in that direction. With blind faith I fly from one tangle of life to the next, never knowing what the new will hold.

What is Good

"Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you."
























(For Sale)

From the searching brush

The Blues
(Sold! Copies available)

Gathering Spring
(Sold! Copies available)

From the tortured brush

Lifelines (pulling in the darkness)
(For Sale)

The title of this one says a lot I think, as does the painting itself. The rusted blood waves threaten to swamp her as she peels back the corner of the page to reveal the darkness behind it. Though the world holds so much promise, represented by the lively background and the tender new grass beneath her feet, she still chooses the comfort of these darknesses, though not without pain. This was done for a group about self injury, meant to represent the heavy relief it brings and portray that I was knowingly choosing darkness over life.

Update:
When my aunt, visiting from CA, saw this painting, she talked about pulling in the light, how it seemed that the colorful spaces were being gathered. Never mind that I painted it when I was deeply suicidal and saw it as pulling in the darkness and being swamped and numbed by self-injurious behavior. The open space above her makes me uncomfortable, I feel like something is missing, more darkness or something to cocoon her in. This is the painting that prompted S to ask if I was held often as a baby, if open space provokes anxiety in me and makes me search for comfort (it does). How do I feel about this? The negative voice of ED tells me that people see what they want to see, so of course my aunt sees positivity in a painting so dark. The good part of me holds onto her words and hopes that she is right; I am gathering light as much as I toy with the dark.

From the insightful chalk

My eating disorder is...

mindless and destructive, like a dragon.

"There is no space."

The irony of a tiny person in a vast, overflowing bath.

From the knowing brush

Containment Issues
(Sold! Copies available)

I did this in "Seeing Beyond Bulimia and Binge Eating." Our prompt was to depict what it felt like to be in a binge. Mine ended up being more about what it felt like to be in a purge, though. I drew a sort of Jonah and the Whale of a girl being swept out of the inside of a whale, following the putrid swirls of the contents of its stomach. She is scrambling to grab onto something and not be expelled, but it's no use because of the sheer volume in there and how it swamps her. S (the art therapist) pointed out that the girl is trapped and constricted inside the whale, but it also appears that the whale is constricted into the frame of the picture, showing that ED is restrictive, but ED itself is restricted. Also, she is calling for help, her words precious bubbles, but the bubbles pop as soon as they hit the world and are lost, unheard. I was calling and calling for help and it seemed like no one could help me, no one could grab my hand and hold onto me as that tornado inside the whale tried to suck me away.

Mercy of the Fallen
(Donated to the Renfrew Center's permanent collection; copies available)

The woman is pulling from the darkness (I didn't intend to put this in the painting originally, but it happened by accident on another piece of paper and I really liked the idea of extreme darkness and grounding) and filling up on all these secrets and shame, all of which distend her belly as they get stuck below the band/ribbon around her waist (S pointed out the emotional restriction caused by this). She is gripping her stomach and squeezing out all of these dark words she needs to speak-- her song, in the form of birds and their dotted-line trajectories and musical notes. Some of the notes have begun to fall, symbolizing my fear that no one will listen and my words will be lost if I dare to speak up. I ended up going back and adding the green glowing around those falling notes (it's difficult to see in the scan, it sort of turned gray from the light) because I've realized that your words can never truly expire, that someone can come along and scoop them up and hear them for what they're worth at any time. The focus of this work was answering the question of what do I need to do to break the cycle of self-injury, what will help me stop the process before I get to the actual act of injuring myself. When I showed L (my home therapist) this painting, she commented on the use of bluebirds, which are apparently a symbol of happiness, and suggested that maybe it has to do with my mother wanting every word that leaves my mouth to be positive and not related to any of my struggles. These happy birds then spit out the notes of what I actually mean, true emotions encapsulated within the birds, if you will.