"A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out."
-My Mother [quoting someone else's mother]
When I long for someone to draw near--I isolate. Aching for someone to call--my phone remains dead. Adorned with gaudy jewelry, peculiar hats, and shimmery eye-shadow--I collect my clutch, ready for a night out on the town to meet new people. I then head to Dose with my journal--to write about what it would be like to have the courage to do so.
Kim Rice calls this: "The Critical Period." This being: the period of time one stands in front of their unfinished piece--touching it, talking to it, avoiding it, loving it, and feeling tremendous disdain for it--all at once. A good artist captures all the emotions of the critical period and the resolve of those emotions once their piece has reached completion.
A question I get asked frequently is: How can you tell if a piece of art is good?
To which I respond: Can you see the struggle in it?
The wet-behind-the-ears art teacher that engrained this concept into our [high school] AP 3D art class is now an established Visual Arts professor at The University of Oklahoma. Though I struggle with the implementation of her advice, I cannot help but have hope in her words as she has made it past her own critical period:
"Every artist comes to a place in their piece where they want to chuck it; they want to trash it...they want to quit. That is when it needs to be finished. You have to keep going. I know if I can get past the critical period where it looks like shit to me--I am a true visionary; I am still the bold, idealistic, arrogant girl I was in college who can press through to achieve a finished product."
Rice would be disappointed in me.
Six of my sad, unfinished pieces clutter the storage closets of my closest friends. I have screamed profanity at them--they keep me awake at night.
"This means something about myself..."
I say frequently to my friends.
Quick to brush off my need to find symbolism in everything, they comfortingly say:
"No it doesn't! Just finish them!"
It was not until I heard the profound teachings of Dr. Tammy Ruff [professor in Psychology of Human Adjustment at Nashville State Community College] that I stood affirmed.
It is, and is not as easy as finishing them.
In 2012 I completed a masterpiece entitled: The Little House of Flora. It was the kick-starter to a series of houses I would [and I use this word carefully] prophetically paint for my closest friends and family. I see people as houses. The Lord speaks to me in houses. These pieces were the only "heart" pieces I have been able to pour into and complete over the past two years. During a show-and-tell of The Little House of Flora--I finally understood why I never find resolve.
I am double-bound.
Last summer,
Dose Coffee and Tea accepted my request to hang my artwork in their shop.
-I never delivered my pieces.
Thirteen complete anthologies of poetry gather dust on my shelf.
-I have never pursued publishing.
I purchase every fitness book I can get my hands on and obsess over my weight.
-I ate ice cream for breakfast and dinner last night.
I desperately crave space to create.
-I clutter the room with unnecessary objects,
And force my art supplies in a plastic tub under the bed.
I would love to meet someone.
Dose Coffee and Tea accepted my request to hang my artwork in their shop.
-I never delivered my pieces.
Thirteen complete anthologies of poetry gather dust on my shelf.
-I have never pursued publishing.
I purchase every fitness book I can get my hands on and obsess over my weight.
-I ate ice cream for breakfast and dinner last night.
I desperately crave space to create.
-I clutter the room with unnecessary objects,
And force my art supplies in a plastic tub under the bed.
I would love to meet someone.
-I purposely stood up a date this weekend.
My friends deem me: "A Walking Contradiction."
Dr. Tammy Ruff declares me: Double-bound.
We are all double-bound. Generationally, and culturally we are double-bound. It is not entirely our fault. We are flooded with messages such as: "Be your own person--but live, breathe, talk, look, and succeed like this." My generation of prolonged adolescence is double-bound: We long to live a free, transient lifestyle of glamour and self-expression...but we are doing it off our parents' dime.
Ruff notes:
"[Whether-by faith or strong constitution] we already have the answers
to our own questions."
For "Walking Contradictions" like myself, the neon exit sign is flashing. We have the capability to complete the piece...to walk out of the critical period.
What then, makes this choice so difficult?
What then, makes this choice so difficult?
I made a list of double-bindings in my own life and started digging toward their gnarly roots. I found that [the fear of] feeling invalidated, small, belittled, forgotten, and disappointed are the primary reasons I do not pursue my dreams. Furthermore, I discovered I have an incredibly weak constitution.
Dr. Ruff noted in the study of this:
"Those who grew up in households where they were constantly told 'The Bad' isn't what it seemed to be...have weaker constitutions. When they grow into adults, they cannot believe in their own opinions. They constantly beg for the opinions of others...they are easily swayed."
Ruff used the example of fearing throughout her entire childhood that she would--at some point--suffer from a "spell." "Spells" were what her mother would call her drunken uncle's state of unconsciousness at family reunions. Ruff stated: "I have been confused my entire life as to why they couldn't just say: 'You're right, Tammy. There is something wrong. Uncle [______] is drunk.'"
I grew up in an imaginary house where everything was make believe. In turn, the majority of my friendships have suffered. I always kick open the door and allow my friends to breathe opinions into me [because I cannot form my own], then become incredibly offended when they assume me "wrong," and accuse them of projecting lies onto me. This is, perhaps: My greatest double-binding.
For this, I am sorry and am in the current pursuit of a remedy.
For this, I am sorry and am in the current pursuit of a remedy.
Today?
Today--I am taking my paints,asking for my canvases back...and am going to fight until the bitter end for the person I know who is living inside my body.
Past the critical period--I am bounding...to walk out of contradiction.
