Trauma & Art

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way… things I had no words for” Georgia O’Keeffe

“A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.”  Toni Morrison

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of my favourite artists. Over the last few days I’ve been looking at her art and photos again, and also, reading about her. In one quote she says:  “I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don’t.” It is so true that when we interact with others’ art much of our own meaning making and associations are imposed on the image or object that we see, which is natural and the way it is meant to work, as long as, we don’t insist that our own interpretations and reactions are necessarily the same of those of another. Art is multilayered and one simple image can become a metaphor of something else or tell a hundred stories or come to represent so many things both for the creator and the observer.

Georgia O’Keeffe came from a family of known and unknown artists. Some of her sisters and two grandmothers engaged with art and painting. One of her sisters also became known as an artist. Ida Ten Eyck O’Keeffe started off as a printmaker, studied art, worked as a nurse and arts teacher, and painted around seventy canvases, according to Wikipedia, during her lifetime. In 1974 she was featured in a solo exhibition entitled: “Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow”. She seems to have had similar artistic capacities to her older sister and yet unlike her, she did not achieve wide reclamation or manage to find the time and resources to dedicate herself to art. What were the complex dynamics and contributory factors that resulted in such different destinies for the sisters? Through reading we get a glimpse of some of the variables, but there is so much that cannot be known about another’s life or relationships.

In his book, The Pecking |Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become (2005), sociologist, Dalton Conley, explores the reasons of financial, educational and social inequity among adult siblings, the inequity within the family, and a family’s ‘pecking order’ reality that contributes to disparities between adult siblings. We all like to think of the family as a haven where all the children start on equal footing, but reality is often messier. Dalton Conley supports that the family is not a haven in a harsh world, but it is part of the world, and competition and inequality (or not) start at home. It is natural since families are embedded in sociopolitical contexts and are open to societal influences and survival pressures. He suggests that genes and nurturance do not always adequately explain socioeconomic success and that the issue is way more complex. The pecking order within the family unit is further influenced by the family’s sociocultural context and particular events of trauma, illness, divorce, death of a parent and other difficulties that may arise over different periods, and which may not be the same for all siblings. Then there is birth order, nature and nurture. So, there is always a combination of variables to consider.

The evolution of a birthday drawing

On gratitude for the gifted nature of life by David Whyte

‘Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given. Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event; it is the deep, a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape’

On Healing the Child Within by Thich Nhat Hanh

‘In each of us, there is a young, suffering child. We have all had times of difficulty as children and many of us have experienced trauma. To protect and defend ourselves against future suffering, we often try to forget those painful times. Every time we’re in touch with the experience of suffering, we believe we can’t bear it, and we stuff our feelings and memories deep down in our unconscious mind. It may be that we haven’t dared to face this child for many decades. But just because we may have ignored the child doesn’t mean she or he isn’t there. The wounded child is always there, trying to get our attention. The child says, “I’m here. I’m here. You can’t avoid me. You can’t run away from me.” We want to end our suffering by sending the child to a deep place inside, and staying as far away as possible. But running away doesn’t end our suffering; it only prolongs it.

The wounded child asks for care and love, but we do the opposite. We run away because we’re afraid of suffering. The block of pain and sorrow in us feels overwhelming. Even if we have time, we don’t come home to ourselves. We try to keep ourselves constantly entertained—watching television or movies, socializing, or using alcohol or drugs—because we don’t want to experience that suffering all over again.

The wounded child is there and we don’t even know she is there. The wounded child in us is a reality, but we can’t see her. That inability to see is a kind of ignorance. This child has been severely wounded. She or he really needs us to return. Instead we turn away. Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It’s like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water. That ignorance stops us from seeing reality; it pushes us to do foolish things that make us suffer even more and wound again the already-wounded child in us.

The wounded child is also in each cell of our body. There is no cell of our body that does not have that wounded child in it. We don’t have to look far into the past for that child. We only have to look deeply and we can be in touch with him. The suffering of that wounded child is lying inside us right now in the present moment………

When we become aware that we’ve forgotten the wounded child in ourselves, we feel great compassion for that child and we begin to generate the energy of mindfulness. The practices of mindful walking, mindful sitting, and mindful breathing are our foundation. With our mindful breath and mindful steps, we can produce the energy of mindfulness and return to the awakened wisdom lying in each cell of our body. That energy will embrace us and heal us, and will heal the wounded child in us.

When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else. But we must also listen to the wounded child inside us. Sometimes the wounded child in us needs all our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention. If you are mindful, you will hear his or her voice calling for help. At that moment, instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child. You can talk directly to the child with the language of love, saying, “In the past, I left you alone. I went away from you. Now, I am very sorry. I am going to embrace you.” You can say, “Darling, I am here for you. I will take good care of you. I know you suffer so much. I have been so busy. I have neglected you, and now I have learned a way to come back to you.” If necessary, you have to cry together with that child…….

Embracing your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him unattended. The little child has been left alone for so long. That is why you need to begin this practice right away. If you don’t do it now, when will you do it?  ………    Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things. Practice mindful walking and mindful breathing. Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love’  (Extract from an article adapted from Reconciliation: Healing The Inner Child (2010) by Thich Nhat Hanh)