RAT/MC Survivor Presentation

[Project Willow]

I thought I would post this for those who have inquired.<br><br>RI folks who've paid attention will recognize the author.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://members.aol.com/smartnews/ls06.htm">members.aol.com/smartnews/ls06.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

Yes, no mistaking that person's talent. <p></p><i></i>

[sw]

Wow, that was so well done, PW.<br><br>Your art captures the experience so well it's chilling. It captures it way better than words ever could.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Project Willow]

Thanks Chig., and sw! <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

thanks for posting this PW<br><br>the 2 survivors I am closest to also paint/sculpt. one works in a decoative way, with high colour and swirling forms, and often reference to imagery of childhood, the other's work has been more illustrative and figurative, but in both there is an avoidance of direct reference to the processes of mc/ra . I'm struggling to express this - its that those who know about it can recognise it, but others might just think 'that's crazy, or love the colour ' - as if there has been a different path and different filters . <br><br>both violently rejected what they had done when they became aware of what had happened to them - and returned after a gap of some years to working, still haunted by the thought that what they are doing is like it is because of what happened.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

I'm still not managing to say what I'm feeling about this - survivors and art. In your work, I feel an exposition of the interior mental and emotional space of being 'there'. In the work of barbara and sally, those mental and emotional spaces have slipped through, transforming the imagery.<br>its been remarked amongst the small community of supporters I'm with, how frequently the arts are part of the lives of survivors.<br>against a climate which has squashed them almost entirely out of school curriculum in favour of more utilitarian pursuits,(business studies comes to mind) its another argument for them to have a major space. I don't mean to say, because they are therapeutic - I mean because they are valid as expression and communication of experience, and that is more important finally than utilitarianism.<br><br>I don't mean that survivor art is a different category either. the transformation of experience, incl. negative experience is the process of art - so Goya, so Matisse collages, so Mahler songs, Soutine. <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

Sorry, I am totally artistically illiterate, so keep that in mind about what I'm going to say. I know everyone who sees any one work can see it differently from everyone else, can experience it differently. What comes through to me in Lynn's work is a message of "twisting", " twisted", almost "knotted" (or "notted" or "naughted"), and also the immeasureable burden of carrying all those heads/selves/beings on one body. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 9/14/06 12:21 pm<br></i>

[sw]

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[blanc]

your description is also very helpful sw, for those of us trying to support people in a similar situation, so thank you for putting it so clearly.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Project Willow]

Thank you for sharing that Blanc.<br><br>I see this material emerge in all kinds of artwork, and from artists who are apparently unaware of what they are creating. I am showing the work of a painter in my gallery, and I cannot imagine the source of it if he is not a survivor. I hope to post something of his here if I get permission. One painting is a 7 foot tall portrait of Dick Cheney, naked, (including his rumored oversized member) with two very injured children standing in front of him. They're in a war torn landscape and Cheney has the most evil grin on his face. The rest of this artist's work is reminiscent of mine, twisted bodies and blended, overlapping faces. The artist told me he had read the Franklin Cover-up.<br><br>Not long ago I visited another artist's studio and was not so pleased to inform her that one of the symbols she used was straight out of the lab programs. I was confident in saying so because it is not a commonly used symbol, its rendering was altered in the specific way it had been altered when it was used in the programs. We had a long discussion and sure enough her father had been military, she had suffered years of abuse and had ptsd and dissociative symptoms.<br><br>Chig, I very much appreciate the words you used.<br><br>I'm still researching the connection between early trauma and artistic ability, and I found this interesting:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The creative process involves two distinct phases, inspiration and elaboration or integration, and these sequential phases may occur rapidly or alternate for months or even years depending on the project and the creative individual. The two phases employ different cognitive and affective strategies; the initial phase, inspiration, is comprised of divergent thinking, inductive reasoning and broad global focus. It involves less frontal activity which facilitates disinhibition of the sub-cortical regions allowing more subcortical information to enter the creative process. The second phase, elaboration, consists of convergent thinking, deductive reasoning and focused attention. Both phases engage the right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere is able to contextualize events through a process of balance, focus, self-awareness, self-reflection and self-monitoring and the left hemisphere applies learned rules, specificity, complexity and reason. We require both hemispheres to create content and form that shapes creative meaning.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>(snip)<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>For creative individuals with a trauma history, the initial inspiration phase repeatedly reveals these early brain deficits. Entering states of cortical disinhibition can evoke feelings of disintegration, a state that often terrifies traumatized artists, and the early forming right hemisphere that encodes a corporeal sense of self, when it is in a state of disinhibition, will release these early relational traumatic memories.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> Paula Thomson, PhD.<br><br>sw, thanks.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

Thinking some more on my own personal reaction, trying to think of how to describe this. There's not only this sense of the multiple selves floating around the "self-head", but also the feeling of not being able to distinguish between physical boundaries between the "self-body" and others' "outsider bodies". <p></p><i></i>

[sw]

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[biaothanatoi]

There is a survivor here in Australia putting the finishing touches to her Masters thesis on two 20th century playwrites (I forget who, sorry!) whose work, she argues, unconciously incorporated themes of Masonic ritual abuse. She promised to send me a chapter but we've lost touch, sadly. <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

I think it may be that images which emerge from abuse scenarios can find their way through work by non abused individuals too. artists don't live and work in a vacuum, and the explanation of the creative process which PW quoted, doesn't identify (or seek to identify) the particularity of people who create things. isn't a heightened sensibility to experience a marker for the creative person? when an image is created which resonates with people, it does so because it wakens their sensibilities to what has always been there, and which on some level they know?<br><br>PW wrote of suppression in childhood of her image making. Perhaps, this is simply perps not wanting the cat out of the bag, but there are other explanations, perhaps.<br><br>perps who attacked barbara and sally did specific things to undermine their chosen creative routes. In Sally's case, re-targeting to stop her continuing with the art form she first chose, by physical and mental injury. (I am deeply sad about this) art exists at the opposite polarity of the world view of abusers. it is where we are in the garden of eden, where people fuse emotionally, and the boundaries which mark the self who must be served would make no sense.<br><br> it is a very powerful weapon against tyrants - because it is beyond their comprehension <p></p><i></i>

[Project Willow]

Baio, I would also like to see that thesis if you get access to it.<br><br>Blanc, I was intentionally targeted, yes. Even as a child, they had me in the labs and made me draw. They noted the areas of brain activity, and then I was subjected to punishment when drawing or using the same pattern of activity. The first punishment was having my fingers dislocated. I was given an exception, I was allowed to draw at school. More recently I was threatened, and I hesitate to give out the details, but it was very specific and violent.<br>I have no doubt about your friends, and I am sorry too. It's difficult enough without being threatened.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>it is a very powerful weapon against tyrants - because it is beyond their comprehension<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I agree completely. <p></p><i></i>