Art from pain and suffering
Artist Roxanne Chinook [right] has had personal experiences of rape and family violence, and has said her art “emulates a personal and cultural experience, from the spirit of the trickster to healing from the traumas of my past. The process of creating strengthens and restores my spirit, and has rendered me a relationship with the sacred.”
As I note in my article The Alchemy of Art, creative expression can transform painful reactions and situations, providing strength and understanding to change how we feel and interact with the world. Works of art made by others can remodel our inner realities.
A new article [Scary tale has a scarier subtext, by Jay A. Fernandez, Los Angeles Times January 3, 2007] talks about screenwriter Kimberly Lofstrom Johnson’s writing of her drama “Curve” [in development as a movie] about a young woman threatened by a psychopathic hitchhiker.
She wrote the story following a year undergoing radiation therapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “It was definitely inspired by my experience being sick,” she notes. “Being sick is a lot like being trapped.”
“I wouldn’t want to put myself through torture like that again,” she says, referring to the therapy. “But then again, the best stuff that you do comes from whatever amount of pain and emotion you’ve experienced.”
See more quotes, books, articles on the page healing & art.
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