Phoenix, I think you should write - there is a lovely and natural flow in your writing!
Thanks Rania! I think I should write - or paint - or make prints - or handmade books - or........ also.
But I "can't". Can't in quotes... because my creativity is all so wrapped up in my own mom issues. And I've not really attempted - yet - that untangling. I've been a "maker" of one sort or another since I was a small child and when all my issues started to come together to a crisis-point... I gradually stopped "making" this, then that, then that too... even though I held on to (without a good reason) all the tools necessary to return to those techniques and mediums. Someday.
Simply explained - mom would always criticize everything I made... and almost always with a preface of "I would've/wouldn't've..." and nothing I did could ever stand alone, without her touching it -- and spoiling it for me. When I chose to give up music for art - she started painting... she always "knew better" what would work - despite the fact that in reality, there were things I did much better than she did and would paint areas for her to submit for judging. Sewing was the same way - but it's not nearly so tainted now, because my MIL was a professional seamstress and she was able to undo the expectation I held of my work never being "good enough". MIL had enough confidence in my ability to give me beautiful fabrics for projects she was no longer able to fulfill.
Now, I've sold art. Paintings, prints... and the success of that always generated the fear of retribution from the usual suspect. I've endured countless monologues of what she thinks I "should do"... now that I am not working. Her dreams of a studio... her dreams of being a successful artist (ha!)... all pushed at me with the expection (familiar to you, I think) that I'll be able to teach her how to do it. And that this is the only reason for pursuing this - I don't have a right to my own ego-satisfaction of a job well-done - only she can bestow that honor, you know?
So, like a two-yr-old, I turn the tables on this power play by saying NO - I don't have to! You can't make me!! Sigh. I have convinced myself of this, too - even though I really enjoyed some of the work involved... and understand that my "way of working" can be different now; I don't have to be the hermit in the cave sans all human contact to create anymore... not eating or sleeping until the image hits a natural stopping point.
And my favorite excuse - or rationalization - is that I have nothing to "say" anymore. Well, duh... if there was a word-counter here on the board, I'm probably in the top 20 for sheer number of words. To write still feels dangerous, because what I have to say gets very autobiographical and even after all this time, work, and breakthroughs I feel I have no right to air the family's "dirty laundry" and that I'll be punished via instant karma for "telling it like it is - to me". I toyed with the idea of doing the story in fiction - but it seemed to be a cheap trick, too transparent and perhaps even more dangerous because even if I work hard not to be autobiographical - she'll attribute something to the past in the wrong way. I don't feel too confident with writing dialogue, either - all that punctuation gets in the way... (I know, that's what editors are for)...
... hubs has suggested a childrens' book - completely different, fun, subject matter. And I'll admit to drooling over the prospect of illustrations of a simple story... and then up wells the pain and I don't want to put my self through that anymore. That pain has to do with having simple joys ripped right out of my fingers and heart and ripped to pieces and set on fire in front of me, with the admonition of how I should never, ever imagine that I am capable of or allowed to... experience this... because it's not part of my stupid, delusional mom's reality. Play and simple joys are wrapped up in a grief-hairball that I choke on, every single time... even though I don't fear grief or loss anymore (I simply don't want to be there, if I can help it...).
And I don't want to make ugly, angry, cathartic art anymore. Even if it in vogue.
I want to finally be able to re-create that happy, sunny, simply joyful safe place again... and share that through making things that others can have. I just don't quite know, what is required... beyond "permission", confidence, forgetting the "rules" (or emotional taboos)...
