“Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.” -Meister Eckhart
Hello! Welcome to my first blog post!
I have been waiting for an inspiration hit me so that I can start blogging. Yeah, right! We all know how that works – you wait and wait and wait and… wait a bit more… But here I am today writing my first blog post. Finally!
The inspiration came from various angles, all pointing to the same direction: to blog about - Wait for it! Drumroll please! - charcoal!
Google dictionary tells us that charcoal is “a porous black solid, consisting of an amorphous form of carbon, obtained as a residue when wood, bone, or other organic matter is heated in the absence of air.”
Doesn't this sound symbolic to how we can feel sometimes when things have hit the bad times? Porous, black solid, residue, burnt, no air?
Charcoal the drawing tool feels earthy. It is dry to touch. It draws black, and shades of grey. It makes white shine in comparison. It lets you follow the curves of a human body (as in life drawing) and the curves of your mind. It is very forgiving. It can be fun, it can be nurturing, it is a great tool for healing. You can use it just about anywhere.
Let me tell you a story of a fictional character called Y. Y has been emotionally and physically traumatised in the past. Y is depressed and anxious, has problems with family, sleeping, eating, you name it. Y loves art making but she has been punishing herself for not allowing herself to immerse in art making. Then she meets a person I call Y Knot. Y Knot encourages Y to visit an art shop. Y pushes herself to go in the shop even though she is scared to go in. But once she steps in the shop, she is in heaven. Y starts looking around and she can feel something shifting. She is in her world of happiness right then and there. Colours! Pens, pencils, paints! So many different types of paper! Ooh, brushes! Clay! It is almost overwhelming for her senses. She spends a long time just looking and touching, imagining, being happy. Then she buys charcoal and paper. Y goes home and starts drawing, and she draws what ever comes to her mind. When Y feels lonely – she draws. When Y is angry, had an argument, she retreats to draw. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, panicky feeling in her chest – she draws. After a while Y has a stack of drawings, and if she took an analytic look at her drawings, she would see that her drawings start to change. From coarse anger to beauty and softness, from sharp black lines to grey, then spots of colour, Y is creating a pathway for herself from desperation to beauty.
Y is fiction but the journey of healing through art making is not. It is the process that helps to deal with what’s on one’s mind. When the problem or issue or unwanted thought is out of the closet, on the paper, it is then easier to work on. It is ready to be processed further if need be. Y Knot, I say!
Sometimes just drawing it out is enough. Look at this article by Philip Pullman.
Philip Pullman: how drawing helped me to see the world differently (2.10.2015 The Guardian)
“Drawing helps us see better. We never look at anything with so much attention as when we’re drawing it, and it’s a thinking attention, comparing this shape with that, the breadth of a hand with the span of the glass it’s holding, the darkness of that shadow with the brown of the velvet curtain, the foliage of that silver birch with the quite different leaves of the hornbeam beside it. Learning to draw is learning to see much more vividly and clearly.”
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” – Rumi
Keywords: art therapy, art therapist, healing art, Springwood, Brisbane, Logan, Queensland.