Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Art Therapy

Art Therapy
Its been a rough couple of weeks - three, in fact। I shared in an earlier post about my Bi-polar illness. Well it seems that I am like everyone else with this illness in that it is cyclical. I have had a recurring ’episode’ for months now and it has been, honestly, debilitating. It has affected me at my job and personal life as well. I am currently in a hospital program that is in place to get me stable and able to teach me the skills to help me cope with the illness.

One of the great things about this program is Art Therapy। (Its funny, because I studied psychology and art therapy in college. Who knew I’d be on the receiving end of it.) I must say that its been a long while since I’ve felt so free to do whatever I wanted with my art. Realistically, I’ve always been able to do whatever I’ve wanted, but have felt stunted and held back for some time now, not able to produce anything at home or at my studio.

I’m posting some pics of a few of the pieces I’ve worked on during
art therapy sessions.


The first picture I worked on was a picture of a mother and child. I don’t think there’s any hidden psychology to it, I just didn’t know what to do that day।

The next picture is from a day when I was feeling kinda low। It’s a fish swimming against a giant whirlpool with a black hole।

It may sound kinda morbid, but the third picture is one I’ve always wanted to depict in some way। It’s the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah।



Now, speaking of the psychology of the pictures, it was pointed out to me that in at least the second and third pics, within the negativity of the scene, there is an aspect of hope. The fish is gold and shinning and is swimming away from the black hole. In the Sodom and Gomorrah scene, there is the escape of the characters of Lot and his family on the right side of the picture. Both of these as well as the mother and child picture are hopeful and they show that even in a state of depression, I and anyone else can have hope enough to move on and keep going forward.
I’ll post more pics soon, for they really show what I’m going through right now. That’s my life right now.