Art as the By-Product of Emotion
For me, art is the method by which I remove unbearable emotions like pain, sadness, joy and wonder from inside me. The visible product, the artwork, is the footprint left behind when I carry a heavy burden of emotion out of my mind on the lead of a pencil, the tip of a paintbrush, the edge of a knife, or the surface of a keyboard.
For me, those visible evidences, those footprints, are monuments of victory or memorials to loss. They are warnings, epiphanies, and visions of joy. They are things you can look at to see what's inside of me if you are curious, if you wonder if what's inside other people is like what's inside you.
Art as a By-Product of Grief
Turning Grief Into an Image
Some of the art that comes to exist from the outpouring of my emotions finds its source in grief. As I grieve onto the piece of paper or the glowing screen it often transforms into joy and wonder.
The image above this bit of text bears the essence of the face of someone I loved and lost far too soon. She stands in the darkness but most of the light is coming from her. I miss her voice and her gaze. Those are gone. But now she is part of the earth and the Japanese maple that grows near her ashes and her breath is part of the sky. She is nude because she never hid her most intimate self from me except when it mattered the most. For me, the image reminds me of the wonder she was that I was privileged to share. I find it bittersweet and beautiful and it's less painful for me to realize she no longer exists in the universe when parts of her come out in the art my emotions leave behind. Her echoes live on.
The piece of writing linked below bears the echo of another lost and beloved and somehow reminds me I still have a few faint shadows made of light left by her inside me.
Writing From Love and Grief in an Epiphany of Joy
- The Ashes of a Lion's Heart: A Story about Momma
This is the story of a joyful epiphany felt in a time of grief, intended to help others learn to see the parts of their lost loved ones they still have. It is secular in nature.
Joy Expressed
You may wonder how joy could be an emotion so unbearable that it has to come out through artistic means. Sometimes joy can be so large it seems to press at the capacity of my mind to contain it.
I was drawing my joy onto the piece of paper before I even realized his face was rising from nothing onto the whiteness from dark lines pulled from my pencil.
The shapes and lines and shadows are derived from the way light bounces off his face while he’s sleeping but the distortion, the blurring comes from the tears prickling in my eyes with the strength of my emotion as well as my morning blurriness before I put glasses on my face.
Healing Hearts and Minds
The Residue of Healing Wounds
Most of the art I leave behind while healing myself through self-expression is writing. Some of it can be thought of as if it were the bullet removed from a gunshot wound and kept as a souvenir or good luck piece. Some of it can be thought of as medical research which may hold clues to healing someone else or hold warnings to prevent the spread of the particular ill that inspired it.
As I press my pain into clay or cut it into wood or stone and as I brush it onto canvas or stroke it onto paper sometimes it transforms into beauty although sometimes it just stays pain. But even when it just stays pain, it becomes pain that other people can see even if they can’t understand it.
I consider the writing linked below to be art accidentally made as a by-product of healing through self-expression.
Writing Through the Emotions of Homelessness, Violence, and Mental Anguish
- Society's Weeds, Poetry from the Homeless Experience and Beyond
These three poems were written by a formerly homeless woman to express a little bit about the way living without a home so many years ago permanently changed the way she sees the world. - Disturbing Poetry
This is a small collection of poetry written by the author as a form of catharsis in response to horrible life events. Some may be triggering for some readers who have survived violence or abuse. - Writing From a Homeless Heart
Homelessness left marks on me that can't be easily seen except in my writing, which exposes painful, damaged parts to the sunlight, sometimes through poetry and fiction.
Art as an Expression of Stories inside Me
The image above and the image below came from fiction stories I've written. They were drawn during the editing process in both cases. They express my feelings of what I hope those stories awake in those who read them.
Emotions Generated by Music
My partner asked me to create a cover for his album. So I listened to the album straight through and I drew the emotions it created in me.
This page is a work in progress. I could never finish a page with such a topic because most of my self-expression takes the form of some kind of artwork or another. I write at least a thousand times as much as I speak. I create more physical artwork (draw, paint, sculpt, design, make) than I have conversations.
© 2013 Kylyssa Shay
