When Control Becomes a Cage
Reflections on Hidden Pain
A few weeks ago, I launched an experiment in collaborative creativity called The Living Mood Board, where I invited others to journey with me through daily prompts and intuitive image-sharing around the theme of "Hidden Pain." For two weeks, thoughtful reflections and images were submitted in response to layers within this theme, which formed a multi-faceted inspiration on the story of hidden pain.
As I step into my role in the collaboration, which is translating these layered stories into paint, I will share about the first two pieces that are unfolding.
Prompts for the first two days in the project were around perfection and masking. I received images and journal entries as each person sat contemplatively with their own story and experience in the day with these ideas in mind. I was struck by a submission from Terah (permission to share granted) where she noticed a design/aesthetic choice of very sharp grid lines that caused her to wonder, what might be going on internally to cause a desire for such external order?
The very next day I received an image from another Living Mood Board participant which felt like a response to this question. He shared an image of tear drops drying on the floor from surprising tears of grief that were shed that day. A deep sorrow had emerged, which felt in contrast to the emotional mood that he presents to others on a consistent basis. At times, a controlled grid of emotions that are permissable can be acting as a mask to cover emotions that overwhelm ourselves or others.
These two images and profound insights were a launching point for me in these next two paintings. I knew that I wanted to allow the messy process of alcohol, ink, and heat to be the foundation for both pieces. Entering into the tension and hesitation that both Living Mood Board participants were articulating felt necessary, as I had to enter my own honest struggle with mess, pain, control, and fear.
Alcohol ink is spontaneous, wild, uncertain. It feels like the opposite of grid lines and mathematical relationships. Like the ink responding to gravity, heat, air, and pigment, I cannot predict when grief will surface, I cannot fully understand the mystery of where it lives, what it needs, and how it must move through me. I also cannot try to contain the ink in safe lines, it runs where it will go, laughing at my efforts to neatly constrain.
From there, I added a human form, as is my own unending creative curiosity in faces, specifically faces that sit in limbo between form and transparency, which continually resonates with me as an absolute truth of what living this life really feels like.
In the end, the woman, in her messy, incomplete glory, is contained by her own set of grid lines.
The second piece I am working on began abundantly full of messy stains and drops, as I reflected on the tear stained ground from the Living Mood Board contributor. Our personal inner landscape, and yes, our generational stories are full of such hidden textures.
In wrestling with the idea of masking to cover this texture, I decided to form two faces, as if the face in pain is looking to the stony mask for protection.
These paintings, and the vulnerable creativity that others have contributed along with me, invites us all to consider—
What internal pains sit behind our grid lines?
What hidden textures are we covering with lifeless masks of stone?
What systems of imprisonment have been established and reinforced in and around us?
My prayer is that the examples of the Living Mood Board contributors’ generosity in taking time to slow down, reflect, and share honestly would fill us all with courage to do the same in our own uniquely important ways.