How Art Can Heal a Soul
I’m one of those makers who create for a specialized client that has very private parameters around the work so they are not very often comfortable with the results being shown in my portfolios. The client is often someone recovering from a loss or are facing a death.
The first time somebody came to me and asked me can you paint my “true self” I stopped for a moment and almost said no. She went on to say that she would like to leave a legacy for her daughter and that she was facing her death.
I really almost said no.
There’s something deep inside of me said “Ok, OK let’s try”.
The visual image gets to the feeling center way before words do. You see, the soul looks through the eyes. It takes in and processes an extreme amount of data. We can’t even fathom how perception works and how it interfaces with the reality that we experience.
This topic fascinates me. I think it’s because in high school, I learned about how art history has shaped human awareness. It was in high school, that I experienced first hand, how making art really does heal a shattered heart. I was suffering from grief. My mother had just died and I was a teenager with three younger sisters.
Going into the inner world bringing out images that were uniquely my own helped me understand that not only was there a visual physical world but also a visual metaphysical world. Then the two worlds were not necessarily separate. It helped me begin to see I was much more than I thought I was.
It was in art school that I experienced how much of the physical experience felt like a projection of my own thoughts. Life became dynamic, and magic seemed to be around every corner. Soon synchronicity after synchronicity created such an entertaining and interactive life. When I began to watch patterns I began to see an underlying unifying pattern to my experience.
When I step out of the way of the creation and the creating process then I can be humble about being an instrument for something greater to come through me and express itself into the physical world. I feel it is Love itself.
It’s my experience that a painting can send out a vibration (like a song does) it has a tone and the significance that the soul can hear if the soul opens to see rather than the mind taking over and the physical eyes trying to see something that is identifiable as what it seen before and put it into a labeled category.
When some thing in the unconscious is brought up to be seen, there is a power in the dissipation effect that this action gives. The paintings then become a deep inner process to remove the sorrow and replace it with deep everlasting contentment.
It returns us to an experience of the eternal. It helps us settle into a deep trust and faith in the process of our life story. It helps us let go of what is our fear and bring us into our own expression of love.
In the last few days I’ve begun to experiment with digital imaging. Taking a photograph and bringing out the mythical spirit and presence of nature. Not only to glorify it, but also recognize it for its wonder and enchantment. I hope this is healing to the earth itself. It helps me not to suppress my inner fairy king too.
I’ll probably take it deeper and deeper and then also take it to canvas. Oil paint has a living essence to it that acrylic paint cannot even begin to emulate. Much of it is made with rocks and oil and natural substances.
I believe anything that takes us back to our more natural state is healing. Our natural state is soulful, expressive and loving. It’s filled with virtues and compassion. It believes. It is powerful. When we return to that I believe the earth will too.
Email me at mamagood98 at yahoo dot com if you are interested in an intuitive painting made just for you as we talk on Zoom.
