Inifinity in My Lap: Healing Art

So, I spent the greater part of Thursday in a relatively small room filled with big moments. I had more fun that day than I'd had in I don't know how long. As a child, like most children, I loved to draw, color, paint, cut, paste, whatever. But in high school, we had to choose between chorus and art classes, and I always sang. And visual art, beyond photography, just didn't have much of a chance in my schedule. Then in college, I took one drawing class and fell in love with "making art," as the artists say. (For some reason, I never heard that expression until the past few years, and it still sounds a little odd to me. I tend to think of "doing art," for whatever reason....and look what I just found, piqued by curiosity about that phrasing.)

Our teacher was amazing. She has a real gift for what she does and for teaching it to others. Her warm, compassionate enthusiasm was contagious.

Of course she was teaching/lecturing part of the time, but she also gave us projects to do. And it was so neat, how people got so engrossed in what we were doing. The room just felt different when everyone was focused on their own little creation, music was playing quietly, and no one was talking.

These oil pastels were our friends for the day. I felt like I was back in elementary school. I still remember how exciting it was the first time I had a box of 64 crayons!

We partnered with the person sitting next to us and played "scribble chase." One person leads with a scribble/doodle, and the other follows. A great ice breaker.

I led on this one. My only thought was to do more than go round and round, so I did some other things. It kind of wound up looking like a face, didn't it?

My partner, who became my friend in the course of the day, led on this one. It was more relaxing, just going round and round. And I like how our pinks look together.

The next thing we did was the "inside and outside the square" piece that I described in the previous post.

And for the next one we were instructed to just doodle until she said "stop." It wasn't very long at all. My original doodle was just the curve you see below that forms the main part of the bass clef sign.

Then we were to think of three things we could make from the doodle, and not begin doing anything with it until we had three ideas. (Generating ideas, envisioning possibilities....important stuff in therapy.....)

Once we had three ideas, we were to choose one of our ideas and continue making something from our doodle.

Well, I liked two of my ideas so much that I did both of them, and the next thing I knew, I had the beginning notes of the main theme of Beehoven's Ninth and an angel together on the page, with joy in various languages, and beams of light coming from the heart of the angelic figure.

At some point I thought how strange it was, with the things going on in my life lately, that I would be creating art so full of light and joy and music. Was I in denial? I wondered. But I just kept adding beams of light and then the bass clef-y doodles to frame the piece, and I knew I was not in denial. There are hard things going on, some very hard things, but the light and joy overcome the darkness.

So then I added the "o magnum mysterium" to the mix, because it is rather mysterious how light and dark, joy and sorrow, can be so mixed in one mind and heart. And because I know that for me it is the great mystery of the Incarnation, and all that follows from it, that makes it possible.

When Lisa came around to see what we were doing and talk briefly with us about our work, she asked me, "So how far do the rays of light extend beyond the page?" I looked up at her and after a moment's pause said, "Infinitely. Because even though it looks like an angel, this is the heart of God, and the light is infinite."

And that is why I want to do more art in my therapy. Because I didn't even have that in mind when I was drawing these images. Not consciously. I was just going with the doodle and seeing what I could do. I drew hearts because I am not good at drawing faces, and  it seemed like a good way to not have to draw a face but still represent an angelic figure.

But somehow, making things with our hands has a way of going deep into our minds and heart and pulling things out.

And sometimes when doing that, infinity kind of. . . drops into one's lap.

Infinity in My Lap

"Infinity kind of...drops into one's lap."

That's Stratford Caldecott trying to describe to Ken Myers those moments when we are struck with the infinite nature of the cosmos, and how we are a part of it and are touched by it. How children seem to experience those moments more frequently, and how we as adults can learn to be more open to them.

I was listening to the interview this past Wednesday while driving from Memphis to my home town in Arkansas. This time of year the fields are piercingly green as the early evening light does its magic with their chlorophyll.

At certain moments I felt infinity dropping into my lap, perhaps bumping on the steering wheel as it came. It was early evening. The sun was still high enough to not be right in my eyes, but it was dropping, and it shone on the fields and through the trees at an angle that just made them magical. I wanted so much to stop and take pictures! But I knew if I did, I risked letting the sun get to the point that I would not be able to see, because I was driving almost due west the entire trip, and if that evening sun got any lower, I would be blinded.

So I kept driving, marvelling at the beauty. When I came near the White River and saw the red clover growing thickly all along the sides of the road, it was all I could do to just keep driving.

I was going this way partly to visit family, and also because of a professional seminar on "The Secrets to Using Art as a Healing Process," by Lisa Mitchell.  As soon as I saw the brochure about it, I knew I wanted to go.

So you probably won't be surprised at one of my pieces of art done on the following day. The instructions were simply to draw a square. Then to fill it with color, line, and texture. And then to take something from inside the square and move it outside the square. Here's what showed up on my pice of paper. . . .

The words came to me from the recesses of my mind, from a song my chorus sang in high school. If I can get it to work, you can listen to it here:

Sitting a Spell, Spellbound

So, as I said, this photo  was a hint of things to come. You see that bit of light on the third pew back?

 

 

Well, just keep looking. Because light shines on whatever is in its path, and anything that will reflect it can be transformed. (Yes, I think there's a deeper story there.....)

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking what a wonderful thing this is in a church building, because a church is made up of many people, all different from each other, like the different colors.

 

 

 

And with blemishes, too. But they just don't seem as important compared to the overall beauty created by the light and the colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odd to think that had I come at a different time of day, it might have just all looked like this. The floor had a beauty of its own, a very subdued coloring. But I'm so glad I came when I did for the rich color feast.

 

 

 

It was like music for the eyes. (And, yes, I did try the piano while there. I'm guessing it goes back to 1960 and hasn't been tuned since being delivered there. So the visual music was much more lovely than anything audible!)