“Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word- all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities- it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of the mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach”.- The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Vander Koo

When your brain is entrenched in survival mode, the inclination for creativity is snuffed out. Decision-making is not dedicated to contemplating line quality or color theory; it is laser focused on staying alive and out of danger. In the trauma Bible, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Vander Koo studied the reactions of Vietnam Veterans to the Rorschach Test or Ink Blot Test. Most described horrific scenes of war, rising from the inky depths on the black drips on page reflecting the nightmares that haunted them. The cases that troubled Vander Koo the most, were the former soldiers who saw nothing in the gestalt black shapes of the Ink Blot Test. One man stating he saw “a bunch of ink”.

The human imagination naturally pulls forms from suggestion. Think laying in the grass during a summer’s day watching the clouds above morph into fluffy outlines of puppies, fast cars, or palm trees. This childlike visual storytelling is where art comes in to heal. Even a coloring sheet is a powerful vehicle to spark vulnerability and connection among patients participating in group therapy groups I facilitated in a partial hospitalization program. Scratching away on inexpensive printed coloring sheets adorned with motivational phrases and Mandela designs with markers provided a type of kinetic courage for those struggling to share, and opened up meaningful conversations with about their mental health struggles and trauma.

While deep-seated trauma can pull out creativity by the root, long periods of chronic stress can also have a similar effect. After a relatively rough year including the loss of my grandmother and a job I saw myself retiring from, I found myself not wanting to paint anymore. I did not pick up a brush consistently for nearly six months straight after that summer. It was also a point of time where I knew I wanted my work to change, as I tired of painting nondescript landscapes and experimental abstract paintings. I wanted to make work that felt authentic and for my own fulfillment. However, felt I was artistically and spiritually blocked as I struggled to put together resumes and fill the gaping holes in my life.

One day I saw a healing arts class at Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center advertised on their Instagram taught by an artist I knew. I took this as a sign of what I needed to infuse a glimmer of creativity back into my spirit. It would be the first art class I had taken in nearly fifteen years. The facilitator led the group in a deep breathing exercise before we began to experiment with watercolor powder. I was fascinated by the chalky substance that resembled different colored flour. I promptly picked a coal black powder that was a jarring contrast to the bright hues I usually worked with in my abstract work. When sprinkled on paper and water was dripped on top of it, the midnight pigment sent plumes of smoke across the page. It matched the way I was feeling over the past tumultuous months. Wispy, foggy, and barely there, floating through the motions.

When the backdrop dried enough I used a white watercolor pencil to scratch twinkling stars through the night sky. The imagery reminded me of the Sarah Teasdale poem There Will Be Rest, which was adapted into a haunting choral music piece I sang with community chorus in college. The piece ended with the phrase “stars I shall find”, a reminder that no matter how dark things become there is hope shining high above. Satisfied with my shining stars at home in my dark sky, I took some dark purple and carefully faded it into the black backdrop. Creating this simple image moved me beyond feeling stuck or seeing “just a bunch of ink” of my circumstances. Creativity can break through stress and trauma to help us find, not only our artistic inspiration, but the possibilities that exist to build a beautiful life in spite of it.

How can you use creativity to help you move past feeling stuck in your circumstances?   

Here is the linked video to There Will Be Rest: