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Date Posted: 18:02:03 05/31/08 Sat
Author: SS
Subject: *****************RESPONSEESSAY#2*****************

Noah Eaton
May 19, 2008
English 490

Ameliorating In Shades of Watercolor


“I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.”
Damien Hirst

This is what echoed to me as I read the handful of readings on the subject of “Writing and Healing”, but especially Marion M. MacCurdy’s poignant “From Trauma to Writing: A Theoretical Model for Practical Use” and Thomas Newkirk’s “Anatomy of a Breakthrough” for, surely, this notion is also most applicable to writers, as well as creators of any persuasion.
I recently got an understanding of this through reading Honor Moore’s heartwrenchingly breathtaking essay “My Grandmother Who Painted”, for there are often so many stories we hear about wunderkinds and brilliant minds who nonetheless appear self-possessive and aloof to much the rest of the world, and tragically fall into spirals of schizophrenia and disintegration as they try to come to terms with life beyond the colors and shapes they themselves seem to see for, as Van Gogh said: “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.”
This is what MacCurdy immediately delves into, by explaining that trauma “produces something called an iconic image, that is, a mental picture that is stored deeply within the brain in the limbic system and is not easily accessible to the cerebral cortex.” (162) which such memories are sensory in that “the body reacts to them even when the conscious mind is not aware of the cause of such reactions.” (162) largely because the amydala not only contains these images, but the emotional significance to them as well.
Moore, herself, is both the narrator, as well as the protagonist, in her essay, which opens with her sitting on a large, wood-framed loggia couch, belonging to her grandmother Margarett, who has a desire to be a prolific writer who mentions that the urge to rescue a bloom from a burrowing Japanese beetle taunts her concentration like radio static. Yet, at the same time, she is fearful of doing so because her grandmother also happened to have creative talents, having been a painter in her earlier life, who abruptly gave up after thirty years because, as she explained: “It got too intense!”, falling into a cycle of binge-drinking and depression, and Moore goes on to say: “I’m always afraid I’ll turn into a manic-depressive like my grandmother!”
And that’s what can make the life of an artist feel apparitional ever too often; because when many of us paint, or write, or sing, we do so because we feel most alive when we do so, and while any work of art may often be laminating there before your very eyes, many just never stand close enough to it and see that, as James Rosenquist had said from studying Art Theory back in high school, any painting or work of art is just a big feeling around you, and many of us only come off as short-sighted or far-sighted.
This is what makes Honor’s question to her grandmother Margarett so emotionally poignant to me: “Was it craziness or just something in you that needed to be understood and wasn’t?” (55). Especially if it were going from being the featured exhibitionist at Kraushaar Galleries to wanting to dive into a bay with no water not long after. And that leaves me feeling as though any of us are just as capable of winding up bedridden under daffodil-colored satin blankets inundated with scrapbooks filled with photos of these apparitions we are, staring right back at us………only with cheeks far less thick than they are now and being dressed like a Spanish infanta.
Honor’s question, and Margarett’s dilemma, rests at the heart of what MacCurdy describes as “Image and Detail” in her study. MacCurdy offers a nod to Judith Lewis Herman’s research in her book Trauma and Recovery where she explains traumatic memories leave behind “images without context” (166) and that therapeutic process only begins in earnest when one compiles “the fragmented components of frozen imagery and sensation…” (166) to “slowly reassemble an organized, detailed, verbal account.” (166) where the “completed narrative must include a full and vivid description of the traumatic imagery.” (166)
This is what “My Grandmother Who Painted” is all about; the narrator turning to both psychoanalysis, as well as taking the time to get to know her grandmother and who she was and what it was that made her abruptly stop painting, and through that process eventually overcoming her own innate fear of becoming depressive like she had been for years. Except in this case, she had known very little about her grandmother initially, and had formed her belief of who her grandmother was through her own mother’s words and thoughts, which in effect also form a narrative when constantly ironed verbally, where she finally decided to devote much time to finding out more about her life, and funding herself sympathizing and respecting her more the more she learned of her history, thus constructing a new narrative through her grandmother’s own fragments that de-constructs the “manic-depressive” label and scratches below that surface, identifying that much of her depression came out of feeling misunderstood and, in effect, realizing the source of her own trauma, and from there not being ashamed of writing anymore, because she had recognized her grandmother’s truer colors.
And that’s what’s most significant about the title of her essay: “My Grandmother Who Painted”. As MacCurdy explains in her article about the necessity of re-visioning experience in coming to terms with traumatic experiences, the story must begin with image, as a “narrative that does not include the traumatic imagery and bodily sensations is barren and incomplete” (172) Works of art prove to be a worthy substitute for writings in this instance, and it’s those works of art that guide Moore through the process of identifying her grandmother’s true voice. In addition, MacCurdy alludes to Tom Williams, author of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders: A Handbook for Clinicians, where he explains how crucial it is for the trauma sufferer to “describe the setting and the events in as much imagistic detail as possible” (173) to connect emotions with those events, whether it be smells, clothing, weather, architecture, etc. and, in this case, that’s where researching her grandmother’s full history serves her well in providing illustrations to enhance her narrative, and build upon her heightened emotional appreciation of her grandmother.
Which finally leads us into the most rewarding part of this breakthrough; where “holding a mental camera up to nature can bring to consciousness those detailed images and lead to a kind of epiphany, a revelation of the commonality of experience.” (177) which “helps to ameliorate the excruciating isolation that is a by-product of trauma.” (1770
I think empathizing with the ever-growing community of those diagnosed with autism (I’m diagnosed with a high-functioning version of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome) is a fine example of this amelioration process. Many are frequently battling with their doubts and insecurities due to their social impediments, often brooding into bouts of depression, which I myself coped with throughout my early life, and it has been through reading about other autism patients and their own struggles that I have become convinced I’m not alone and feel much less isolated.
I have been particularly moved by the work of British artist Gilles Tréhin, who only he can see Urville, a city with a population of 11,820,257 that is situated off the coast of Côte d'Azur between Cannes and St Tropez, and has written an entire book on it. He got the idea as a child when he created an airport out of Lego blocks and, realizing he had a grand vision for annexing from the airport but lacking Legos to accomplish, turned to pencil drawing to sketch out his grand vision and, by the age of five, was already proficient at pencil drawings, drawing buildings re-created from his own memory.
Tréhin, too, had to deal with much adversity in his life as well. He was echolalic, terrified by the mere pop of a balloon or the ignition of a firecracker and, due to feeling socially excluded, often would be found banging his head against a windowpane and had to be hospitalized once from part of his skull being fractured from that. Fortunately, he had protective parents who liked knowing people with different minds, so helped him to embrace his talents and even research autism regularly (his father Paul is now head of Autism Europe).
Ultimately, I believe any of us are capable of being traumatized and dealing with some form of madness, yet also just as capable of being examples to one another; showing one another the language of truest nature that resonates within our skinny, still like lake eyes, regardless if you’re a painter, or a horticulturalist, or a train conductor. For I indeed believe people are more important than paintings, the personified language of nature and, whether it’s Urville they see, or colors that are seemingly almost hot to the touch, they know language isn’t meant to travel merely forward. It travels backwards as well, and when we finally accept that we begin to find pieces of all that we are filling the air like jewels, beading those still lake eyes like tourmaline gemstones on a tiara………….and that is when we feel most alive not merely as artists, but as people, knowing we were never really crazy, just misunderstood, and now that we have been understood more, we are truly listening! :)

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