Tag: Art Journeys

Creative “madness” leads the way out of suffering

“You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it” Robin Williams

By Michelle Wilson

Madness. That is one powerful word.

It brings to my mind images of people with bright twinkles in their eyes and infectious smiles that make you want to know what is happening in their thoughts.

Madness can also bring to mind images of people who have suffered a great deal of trauma and emotional upheaval.

It can bring to mind unsettling thoughts of those who can’t seem to move out of sadness, depression, anxiety, or constant fear and the feeling that the world is an unsafe and unpredictable place.

Poets and scientists have both made links between these two things – creative genius and emotional suffering.

Robin Williams was certainly a creative genius whose light and spark of energy lit up the world through his work and his life. His recent death brought me great sadness, as I know it did for many other people around the world. I continue to be grateful for what he offered all of us while he was here – for much too short of a time. I wish we had been able to watch his genius continue to grow and deepen for many more years.

“You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it”

I saw this quote by Robin Williams soon after his death and it struck me. I think about the work we do at the Children’s Advocacy Center with children and teens whose lives have been altered by abuse and neglect, and I think about how the abuse affects them.

I have seen how the work of our team helps them move out of the feelings of sadness, depression, and anxiety, and I hope that it helps everyone who comes here feel that the world is just a bit safer, a bit more predictable, and certainly a bit more kind.

Creative madness – the kind that creates new inventions and dares to take risks and makes leaps between things that seem unrelated but that, when brought together, invite new ideas and actions – that is something this world continues to need.

We need to experience the genius that can come from suffering, as well as the genius that comes from just plain, old creative impulses.

I firmly believe that the way out of suffering and chaos can be found in the type of creative “madness” often spurred by the original acts that caused the suffering.

When we let ourselves feel deep pain and confusion – and when we support others in doing the same – creativity can open places that have been blocked and a healthy type of “madness” can give us the energy and impetus to move forward, make changes, and create new paths in our lives.

Great creative geniuses can help to create new paths that leave a wide road behind them for others to follow.

They can teach us, in ways large and small, about the inevitable new opportunities that come after defeat in the endless cycles of our lives.

Thank you, Robin Williams, for sharing your creative spirit with us.

I will remember this invitation when I feel troubled by sadness or grief. I will try to let the wild and forceful energy that comes from difficult experiences create in me a creative type of madness, the type that breaks down barriers and opens the way for something new, something better than I might have imagined before.

May we all remember this, and may we always help those amongst us who need our support in times of tragedy, abuse, and suffering.

Help us remember the creative genius that is there, within us all, just ready to be tapped.
Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 2)

What would you do if you found yourself on a sailboat in the middle of a stretch of ocean, and your task was to search for treasure?

Along the way, you had to:

• find a few new friends
• locate some markers of your trip so you could share them with others who might want to follow you
• weather a storm or two
• discover something magical; and
• leave a mark on the spot of your treasure so others could find it too.

Oh yeah – and then you need to create a piece of art that shows your journey.

The mural created by some of the girls in our mentoring programs, led by artist Manda Severin, represents something very similar to this make-believe journey. They didn’t go on an actual boat, but the mural makes me think about the journeys we take at each phase of our lives and all the symbolism that can be found in a painting of an ocean.

Think about it: an ocean is a deep and mysterious place under the surface, but when you look at it from above, it is just a beautiful expanse of blue water and sparkly splashes and rolling waves. Looking at it from that viewpoint, it seems like an ocean is just water – miles and miles of water.

But we know that under the surface you can find all sorts of life. You might find turtles or fish or living coral. If you are lucky, maybe you’ll meet a mermaid or merman. If you travel close to shore you might see a lighthouse and cliffs and rocky shoreline. If you dive very deep, you might find larger sea creatures, both gentle and fierce, moving through the deep, dark depths.

It’s kind of like stretches of our lives. If we just look at what things appear to be on the surface, it can seem like lots of sameness – like the stretches of blue water of the ocean. If we look below, though, we find all sorts of things going on. On my particular journeys at various times of my life, I have met lots of interesting friends and companions (like the turtles and mermaids and jelly fish in the mural), weathered a few horrible storms, and been very grateful for the markers along the way that helped me avoid wrecks and disasters (like the lighthouse and the compass).

In the mural, the X marks the spot of the treasure, but the box is unopened. I like this image, because even though we might all venture through journeys similar to the one in this painting, we each need and hopefully find different “treasures”.

The journey of healing from anything painful has all of these elements: uncertain pathways, companions and friends, stormy periods, and resting spots when we need them. What I love about this mural is that it leaves a path of this journey so that others can follow and hopefully have an easier time of it. The fact that this was created by girls healing from abuse makes that part of the painting even more touching to me. I like the idea that they have created something that is both playful and significant, meaningful to their own journeys and to the journeys we all take, whether we have experienced abuse or not. We all journey through challenges and times of joy in our lives and this mural speaks to all of us in that way.

Have you decided yet what your journey might look like? Who your companions might be? What treasure you might find at the end?

One last thing. At the top of the mural the purple sky is lit up with glowing stars in the shape of expanding circles and they seem to cast a blessing over the whole thing. I’d like to think those stars represent all those who watch over us and help us, over the girls who painted the mural, over all kids and teens healing from abuse. When I look up at the stars tonight, that thought will bring peace to my thoughts.

Thank you, artists of this mural, for sharing a little bit of your journeys with us and for leaving something beautiful behind at our center. May the stars watch over your journeys, tonight and every night, and may you always have companions to help you along your way.

This mural was painted by artist Manda Severin, with participation by five girls who are in treatment at the Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC). The girls helped choose the theme and picked the design, as well as being full participants in the painting process.

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Manda Severin

The artist: Manda Severin is a true renaissance woman. She has a Master’s degree in Psychology and she has been an instructor at SOU for many years. She is also a very talented artist and musician. She is available to paint murals for individuals or businesses and she can be reached at juniperbryn@gmail.com
Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 1)

In January and February, an artist named Manda Severin helped some of the girls who come to our center paint a beautiful mural. This, like all creative processes, began with a few simple things: paint, a canvas, brushes, ideas and thoughts, and a few questions.

What type of adventure would you like to take? What kind of journey are you on? What journey are we all on?

What flowed from these general ideas was a painting with literal images of flowing water, of ocean waves and birds. I got a glimpse of the mural before it was finished. The top half of the mural is bright with colors from the sea shore – blues and greens and a brilliant red-orange-yellow sailboat floating in the middle. The puffy clouds and bright stars in the sky mirror the white foam bubbling at the shore.

I am captivated by the images and want to get on that sailboat and see where it would take me.

But my eye is drawn to the image on the bottom half of the mural. This section is an earthy brown, a grounding color that compliments the bright movement of the ocean above it. A bright red dotted path starts at an island and travels down, in a curving pattern, around outlines of a turtle and mermaids, ending someplace in the middle of the space.

I wonder what is there?

The mural is not quite finished, so I will have to wait to see what treasure is found there, but it has me thinking. Will the path end here? Will the treasure be something expected, or something surprising? Will we get to see the treasure, or will we be left guessing about what type of treasure can be found in this magical place? Will each viewer of the mural get to decide on their own “treasure”, or will we all enjoy the same treasure?

I love this piece because it is so similar to life, with all of its twists and turns and surprises, the moments when we get to frolic with the sea turtles and the days when we feel lost on a path that doesn’t seem to have an end. The mural is both playful and a bit mysterious, and it invites me to look at my life with a bit more playfulness and lightheartedness.

The journey we are all on can be pretty hard sometimes, and the journey of healing from painful things can feel unbearable at times. But if we keep going – “just keep swimming” as Dori says in a famous sea-based movie – we can know that there is always treasure to be found and unknown adventures just around the corner. Just like life, this mural in its unfinished state invites me to keep going … to follow the dots and explore just a bit more.

I look forward to seeing it in its finished state. Stay tuned.

Tag: Art Journeys

Creative “madness” leads the way out of suffering

Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 2)

Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 1)