Art often impresses.
We speak of a certain gift, of talent.
Culture, or knowledge.
Like it could somehow only be a universe dedicated to the experts and the skilled.
Almost as if a let-through was necessary, as if credentials needed to be shown in order to access that specific world.
To be sensitive to it, to be touched, to be struck, to be moved, has always given me the impression that I was only allowed to stay “in front of the gallery”.
I believe that many of us do not dare to open the door that leads to that world.
That they do not feel legitimate.
It’s like looking at the stars at night: they shine, they fascinate us, but they are mysterious and unreachable.
Until one day when our entire being is fractured, shattered: life, circumstances, you name it.
We have to help ourselves, to get up and rise again.
Art therapy is often suggested to help manage this fracture.
This is the disclosure: that a fracture is necessary to let the light enter.
And at last, we don’t just ” allow ourselves “, but the light enlightens us.
Photo Credit: Paige Bradley website
Mâ means mother in Chinese.
Mâ is a mother of three children.
A few years ago, one of her sons got tattooed the ideogram 妈 (Mâ).
Mâ discovered drawing in art therapy.
She didn’t have any particular training or predisposition for art.
It was first in a cathartic way that the markers expressed her black and white in colors on paper, in what could be perceived as a complete sense of letting go.
Sheet after sheet, from canvas to challenges, the markers slipped and the emotions flowed…
When time came to start signing drawings, it was only naturally, that what she essentially was, imposed itself:
