Monday, November 25, 2013
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY - IN A THREE DIMENSIONAL WORLD
What a beautiful day.
I met my friend Cate in Daylesford and we ventured off together towards Spring Hill Farm between Daylesford and Kyneton. The rain was drizzling down and we were whingeing about the rain and cold a week before summer was about to be upon us. But by the time we arrived at Spring Hill there was a tiny glimpse of blue sky.
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| Spring Hill Farm |
We ventured through the Farm towards the Peony paddock. For $20 we could pick 20 peonies. It was a ten minute walk through lush green pastures to the paddock past horses and cows.
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| Lush green pastures |
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| Horses saying hello to us as we meandered past |
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| Black and white cows looking nice and healthy |
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| Peonies in the paddock |
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| Enjoying holding a bunch of peonies |
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| The stylish Cate with her bunch of peonies |
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| Beautiful full blooms |
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| Soft pinks and whites |
We walked back from the paddock smiling at everyone who was also carrying their bunches of flowers. Many people were posing for photos - visually it was a beautiful farm and the bunches of peonies made great photos. It was as if we wanted to remember this experience. Back at the gate there is a small weatherboard church that has been restored and is glorious in its simplicity. Wood and white décor with a few flourishes added - a bunch of peonies and a candlestick. We wandered around chatting to a few people. One of whom was Annie Smithers - a restauranteur - who was selling great coffee and home made doughnuts. We opted for the coffee and gave the calorieladen dougnuts a miss - but they looked delicious.
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| What a gorgeous little church - so simple yet so inviting |
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| A touch of colour with peonies in the church |
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| The church from the road at the entrance to Spring Hill Peony Farm |
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Just a nice photograph of the cello case |
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| Local musicians |
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| Not sure what this instrument is called |
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| Glenlyon stall verandah |
Rob (my husband) has been away for a week and it was time to tidy the house before he arrives back tomorrow. And just to complete the picture a huge vase of peonies on the kitchen table.
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| Bringing some of the magic of Spring Hill Peony Farm home |
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| I love the voluptuous full blooms and the tight round buds |
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| Some are pinker than others |
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| A clean house with Peonies from Spring Hill and driftwood from Port Fairy |
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| I feel good every time I look at my flowers |
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| God I love having teenagers - Finn cooking pancakes for dinner |
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| A bowl of strawberries - cut beautifully by Eva |
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| The finished Sunday night dinner |
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| Then relaxing on the couch with the Groodles |
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
DISTURBANCE
Why do I find Louise Bourgeois' art so disturbing?
"My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed. They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing." Louise Bourgeois, 1979 (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008,p.11)In an earlier blog I describe visiting my Auntie who was dying and the resulting disturbance I felt. I came to the conclusion that unknowingly my hands had expressed my conflicting emotions and painful realisation that no-one escapes death. My own art making had helped me to unravel my feelings of unease. In the process of creating art I transferred my inner emotions into a symbolic form.
In order to unravel the power of a Louise Bourgeois' sculpture to disturb me I have been reading "The return of the repressed" edited by Philip Larratt-Smith with a series of commissioned essays. There are two books. The first holds Louise Bourgeois' own private notes that she wrote while undergoing psychoanalysis with Henry Lowenfeld which occurred on and off for thirty years. The second is a companion guide that reflects on her psychoanalysis and her art from different contributors.
At one point, an essay (who) within the book describes how Louise was at times difficult and prickly. The author believes this was because she would project her own anxiety into others creating a corresponding anxiety in them. Her difficult emotions were also projected into her artwork. Louise Bourgeois herself stressed that it is not only the artist who creates from the unconscious, but the viewer must also work from the unconscious. It is perhaps not surprising that I experienced some of the obvious emotional conflicts that Louise Bourgeois projected into her own artworks.
An invitation to experience rather than observe
When I think about the times I have seen her sculptures, I sense that she has invited me tantalisingly into her own emotional world. I do not observe her work, I experience it. I can walk around it and in the case of one of her large spiders - stand under it. The sheer size of the spider gave me a sense of being trapped and overwhelmed. When I stood beneath it I felt I may be devoured or annihilated.The exhibition at Heide Gallery, Melbourne Australia of her later works also invited the viewer in. I was able to walk amongst her hanging headless bodies and walk into her jail like cell and under her spider. Her installations invite you quite literally to enter. They force you to interact and through this to connect with her emotional experiences.
Other sculptures had movement created by the suspension. Suspended heads that slowly turned and moved. Hung almost domestically like washing on a clothes line. Domestic chores and dismemberment. A disturbing image. A juxtaposition.
Conflicting material and conflicting emotions
Much like conflicting emotions Louise Bourgeois utilised conflicting materials. Her own clothes stuffed and hung from meathooks. Soft warm fabric nestled in metal, glass or wood. Latex and metal - like skin and bone. Bodies attached to kitchen implements in place of heads or limbs. Soft and hard. Fluidity and rigidity. Human and machine.Larratt-Smith (2012) states that her power as an artist lies in the 'unresolved and irresolvable contradictions between binary opposites.' (p.11) Kuspit (2012) believes her art has an 'uncanny, disorientating effect because it is innately paradoxical.' (p.22)
Containers for human pain and suffering
She created artworks that held her own emotional pain. Her themes seem to centre on the things that caused her great personal anguish. Reflections of her childhood trauma, challenges with her mental health, passion, death, torture, dismemberment, sexuality, secrets, powerlessness, gender, murder are alluded to. They can be frightening to the viewer.According to an essay titled 'Louise Bourgeois in Psychoanalysis with Henry Lowenfeld' written by Donald Kuspit, Louise (can I call her that?) was 'in desperate need of holding.' (Kuspit, 2012). He details some of the periods in her life when she was profoundly depressed, agoraphobic and contemplating suicide. Her art was her salvation.
Kuspit (2012) states that her artworks in whatever material she used are 'symptoms of her suffering.' (p.19) He alludes to her art transcending this pain by her embodiment of the suffering.
Unapologetic honesty
Louise Bourgeois' art speaks of the unspeakable. Sexuality, death, trauma, It is unapologetic. It does not care if we are offended, horrified, shocked, surprised or thrilled. Her art overts her innermost private thoughts - many of them violent or bizarre. She brings the unbearable to her conscious through her hands. According to Larratt Smith (2012) she believes that the artist has a special ability to reach into the unconscious and express psychic truths in symbolic form.Mitchell (2012) believed that keeping her memories raw and alive helped her to delve into her unconscious and take it one step further. She makes concrete, through her art, what is unbearable and unknowable. The transference of her feelings onto materials. The brutality of her honesty is disturbing. Mitchell (2012)describes this honesty in her art as true and real.
The following quotes from British artists
| “ | I walked in and just gasped and went, 'This is for me.' I love the juxtaposition of sinister, controlling elements and full-on macho materials with a warm, nurturing and cocoon-like feminine side. I gather she's had to deal with a lot of anger, jealousy and rage in her past but she still treats the female and the male with love and compassion - there's no silly anti-male thing in her work. You're allowed to feel in its presence. If I had to choose one thing she's done it would be one of the enormous penises, which I've always wanted to pick up and touch when the security guards weren't looking. They're tender and full of passion and love, and there's a little bit of comedy in there. | ” |
| “ | I like the ways she speaks about her family and its tensions. When the work is very illustrative it interests me less, but I like that the fuel for the work is very emotional. She works in lots of different ways, and one of the most refreshing things is that you can't necessarily spot a Louise Bourgeois. That's the sign of a really good artist | ” |
| “ | We're interested in Louise Bourgeois because of the way she archives memory in architecture. Her installations have a strong psychological tension within them, and I think we definitely cross over on that basis. The first time we came in contact with her was in the early Nineties when we went to an event at her studio in Brooklyn. We got to see the spider pieces she was working on before they showed in the Turbine Hall, and there were all these delicious cheeses and nibbles laid out within the work - you had to go underneath to get them. She struck us as being a pretty out-there kind of person. | ” | ||
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Monday, November 4, 2013
LIMITS OF THE CANVAS
"Every day you have to abandon the past or accept it. If you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor." Louise Bourgeois
I came across some interesting ideas in a book by Ann Coxon (2010) titled Louise Bourgeois. This book details her creative process and discusses the psychological features of her sculpture. Coxon states that Louise is most notably recognised as a sculptor. However she began her creative life with paintings and works on paper. This book traces the metamorphosis.
In the mid 1940's Louise Bourgeois was exhibiting alongside American artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. At this time New York and Parisian artisan circles were awash with the dominant philosophical view of existentialism. This world view placed great emphasis on authenticity of expression particularly through art. (Coxon, 2010, p. 16) Around this time according to Coxon (2010) she began to express her frustration with 'the limits of pictorial representation.' Basically two dimensional surfaces were limiting her ability to express herself. Around this time Jackson Pollock began to explore with canvases laid on the floor and paint dripped, poured (Coxon, 2010) and splattered beyond the boundaries of the painting.
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| Pollock pushing the boundaries on canvas |
At this point in time Louise had three young boys. Her art displayed some of her struggles to find emotional space or time to do her art work. She literally had her head in domestic issues with her family responsibilities.
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| A time of domestic challenges to the artist |
Louise entered the world of sculpture with objects she called personages. These were upright, rigid almost totem like figures that were intended to represent the people in her life. As a newly arrived immigrant she created these figures to keep her family from France close to her. When the personages were first exhibited they did not have bases and were dotted around the gallery. It was if the room was full of people as they encountered the personages. (Coxon, 2010).
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| Personages creating a room full of people |
The personages were created through carving, cutting and hacking. This method allowed her to express her aggression and anger. One in particular had nails nailed into the object almost fashioned like a voodoo doll. Louise said, 'This piece kept me from doing to her what I did to the sculpture...I controlled my feelings through sculpture.'
Eventually she grouped her personages. The most basic definition of assemblage is to use found or ready made objects and group them together to make a sculptural composition. Coxon (2010) described this as equivalent of collage - in three dimensional form. In a 1986 interview with Bourgeois she stated, 'Assemblage is different to carving. It is not an attack on things. It is a coming to terms with things....It really is a work of love....there is the restoration and reparation....You repair the thing until you remake it completely.'(Storr, 1986 cited in Coxon, 2010, p.30).
Later in her life, Louise Bourgeois created a series of installations that she titled 'cells.' Installations were devised by artists to overcome the limitations of sculpture and to refrain from the control of the spectators point of view (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008). According to Crone (Crone and Schaesberg, 2008) the cells illustrate how her past both contains and imprisons her.
Bourgeois described the psychological effects produced by the different processes of creating three dimensional objects Carving has the ability to release anger and destructive urges in a cathartic and immediate way. Whereas assemblage allows the artist to salvage, slowly repair and reconstruct the past into something new. It is a transformation.
(Coxon, 2010).
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
ODE TO LOUISE
Falling in love
My love affair with Louise Bourgeois (LB) began in 2009 when June - a fellow student - introduced me to her art work while we were studying art therapy. I was immediately excited by LB's use of textiles. As I read more about her work, I respected her tenacity and unapologetic creativity. She was driven to create and only achieved fame when she was older. The business of sculpting was a man's world and it took a long time for her work to be recognised. She continued to work into her nineties completing her final pieces of art only one week before she died.
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| Louise Bourgeois with her amazing hand |
To Paris with dreadlocks
In 2010 I visited Paris with dreadlocks and my husband Rob. (As part of my felting obsession I wanted my hair felted. I spent way too much money and time at the hair dressers fulfilling my passion for knotted fibres. Still it was quite a groovy 'do' for the Parisian sidewalks.) This was my first time to Paris. The galleries, the public art and the appreciation of art was so inspiring. On weekends people go to galleries - almost like we go to the footy. In fact the day we went to the La Orangerie to see the Monet water lillies was Grand Final day. We rang to tell our kids that we were viewing a Monet water lillies painting and all that they could tell us was that there was a draw in the Grand Final and it was going to be replayed next week!
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| Ahh the public art...bumped into a Thomas Moore on the street |
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| Even the confetti was romantic in Paris! |
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| but it was Vincent that stole my heart...the light he captured in his paintings seduced me |
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| I expected to fall in love with Monet..... |
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| I had to see this particular tapestry titled La Dame à la Licorne in the Musée de Cluny. I love this image when the Unicorn first sees himself. This image was on the front cover of one of my favourite art therapy books. |
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| The view from the apartment - gotta love those rooftops. Our apartment was fabulous - to the left was the Eiffel Tour that sparkled like magic on the hour! |
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| Loved the exotic gum leaves in amongst the roses! |
Louise on tap
My first gallery visit was to the Pompadour and I literally stumbled across a room full of Louise Bourgeois paintings and sculpture. I was struck by the strength of her artwork. I was attracted, repulsed and in awe of her ability to express her pain and her strength through her art. |
| the breathing the palpitations the hot flashes...I could so identify with this |
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| Big powerful and fascinating images. Phallic sculptures. |
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| Louise Bourgeois Cumul I, 1968 |
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| Extreme tension - more hands |
At last I meet "Maman"
On our last day in Paris we decided to look in one more art gallery. I cannot remember the name of the gallery. We were in between exhibitions and there was not a lot on offer. Still they suggested we might like to look at some of their permanent art collection. As I walked down a flight of stairs my heart missed a beat, there stood a Louise Bourgeois spider. |
| The setting was terrible but it did not distract from the haunting nature of these sculptures. Once again I could belong to the landscape of the sculpture. I could walk around and under and see it from many perspectives. |
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| Large, hunting, disturbing, lurking. |
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| It was ominous and terrifying - I felt like it could devour me. |
I was hooked.
I returned from Paris a passionate fan of Louise Bourgeois work. I was delighted to see an exhibition in February 2013 at the Heide Gallery Melbourne. This highlighted her fabric works. For my 49th birthday I went to see the exhibition. I was once again taken on a journey that thrilled and disturbed me. I visited 4 times and each time my curiosity was inflamed. I came away feeling unsettled. What is it about her artwork that connected so directly with my emotions? (Stay tuned for another blog on this very question)This is an article from an ABC journalist who captures the essence of this exhitibition(http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/Collins/Louise-Bourgeois-Heide-review-130215/default.htm, July 29th 2013)
Louise Bourgeois, late works and Australian artists
Courtney Collins
Posted:
French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911 –2010) continued to create provocative works well into her 90s. Heide Museum of Modern Art presents an exhibition of her work focusing on the final fifteen years of her career and another exhibition that looks at the relationships between her art and 10 Australian artists. Courtney Collins finds living traces of the woman, nick-named ‘the Spiderwoman’.‘I pick on everyone, dead or alive.’
- Louise Bourgeois in What is the Shape of This Problem? (1999)
There is a portrait of Louise Bourgeois taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1982 of the artist carrying Fillette. Bourgeois has tucked Fillette (1968), a penis-like sculpture, under her arm and she is holding onto it with one hand like it is both a weapon and a trophy.
I am moving into the exhibition Louise Bourgeois: Late Works at Heide Museum of Modern Art and despite how striking an object it is (you can see it for yourself in the catalogue) I am now not thinking at all about Fillette. I am thinking about Louise Bourgeois’ hands. Room to room, there is no escaping their concentrated presence.
Late Works is an exhibition of thousands and thousands of stitches, hand-sewn by Bourgeois, the cutting and stuffing of fabric to form human heads and hanging bodies. There is a feeling of the artist’s instinct for repair but then the feeling is swiftly disturbed by some deliberate decapitations such as Couple IV (1997). Throughout the exhibition, the first survey of Bourgeois’ work in Australia since her death in 2010, there’s the compounding and repeated drama of bodies missing heads and heads missing bodies.
I think I am taking a break from such drama, facing the ocean-coloured tapestries of The Waiting Hours (2007). At first look, the individual abstract works seem pretty and benign, so much so I imagine them all sewn together as a patchwork quilt covering a big old bed. But as I train my eyes over each delicate panel I do not realize each one is gently tipping me up until I am tipped over. They bring on crying.
I’m moving further in, taking in sculptures, fabric drawings, watercolours and embroidered texts. By the time I reach Spider (1997), a vast, five and a half metre-tall steel and mixed media sculpture, I am so convinced of the power of Bourgeois’ hands I cannot think of her dead, even at 99. She must have installed this work herself. She must be responsible for the fine weave of webs I can now see trailing these gargantuan spider legs.
I ask the guide with the peacock earrings who is responsible and she said, ‘That’s our resident wolf spider. She’s been very, very busy making webs.’
Next door, in Heide II, is Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists.
Del Kathryn Barton takes up the vision and in this case the needle, to thread together her own Bourgeois-inspired tapestries. Along with Barton, the second show features the work of Pat Brassington, Janet Burchill, Carolyn Eskdale, Brent Harris, Joy Hester, Kate Just, Patricia Piccinini, Heather B. Swann and Kathy Temin, all revealing the deliberate and sometimes unconscious influence of Borgeois.
Wolf spider or not, I take it all as proof that, even in death, Bourgeois’ hands continue to weave, repair and decapitate.
- Courtney Collins
Louise Bourgeois, 'Spider' (1997).(The Easton Foundation, New York, NY Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust / Licensed by VAGA, New York / Viscopy, Sydney)
Louise Bourgeois, 'Couple IV' (1997) (Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth. Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust)
Louise Bourgeois, Knife Figure (2002) and Untitled (2002) (Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth. Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust / Licensed by VAGA, New York / Viscopy, Sydney)
Louise Bourgeois: Late Works at Heide Museum of Modern Art is on show until 11 March, 2013
Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists at Heide Museum of Modern Art is on show until 14 April 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
FROM SELF HARMING TO SELF HEALING
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| A felted heart |
Let me introduce my client to you. He is around ten years of age and attends Primary School. He
is a fairly serious child with a worried and sometimes withdrawn expression. Occasionally I see an infectious smile that
lights up his face. His sense of humour
is sophisticated. He is smart. His eyes
are soft and brown. He appears awkward
in his body.
He has experienced terrifying episodes of family violence by
his father and step father – having been physically assaulted and
witnessing his mother being injured by his father, step father and his
brother. It would be fair to say that he
has experienced terror a number of times and feared for his mother’s life and
his own many times. He has been
subjected to repeated experiences of terror and powerlessness.
His relationship with his father has been a source of pain
for him. A year ago he
rang to say hello to his Dad on Father's Day. His father
responded by saying he did not know anyone by his name and hung up. My client
responded by hitting his head against the wall and drawing an image in grey
lead pencil. The image was set in a
graveyard with his father as the grim reaper.
He was kneeling before his father who had stabbed him through the heart
with a knife. This image described the impact
from his father’s rejection and cruelty.
Unfortunately due to the family violence they have had to
move home many times to ensure their safety.
He has changed school a number of times.
He started at the current school at the beginning of the year. He has generally been a popular child and at
previous schools he made friends easily.
He has struggled to fit in at his current school which is in an area
of disadvantage. He explained that he had to wait to be invited by
children to participate in their games. He often feels alone. He is struggling to
survive in the playground at lunchtimes and recess with repeated episodes of
bullying, exclusion and loneliness.
When I first met him he appeared sad and withdrawn. He struggled with eye contact and would
occasionally look at me from under his long fringe. Despite this, when I addressed him directly his
responses displayed a sense of warmth and openness. He displayed an avid
interest in the world and showed an intelligence well beyond his years. He is a
talented musician and artist.
His mother is a supportive and strong parent. She has experienced childhood sexual abuse and trauma from
familv violence. Addiction has been an
issue since she was in her teens. Despite her own trauma she has maintained
strong relationships with her children and is a protective, warm and creative
parent. She has made big changes over
the last few years that have improved her mental health and safety. She verbalizes her own personal growth and
states that she loves ‘the feeling of healing’.
She describes healing as similar to putting together the pieces of a
jigsaw. Each time she finds a piece of
the puzzle she symbolically adds it to her story and feels a deep sense of
relief and healing.
I have had 5 sessions with this young man focusing on
developing a trusting therapeutic relationship and exploration of different art
materials. He is a very competent drawer
and at the beginning said he preferred working in pencil. Due to his level of competence and confidence
with art I have offered him a range of materials. In his second session he requested clay and enjoyed
using the therapeutic space to explore the material. He often invites me to create my own art
alongside him.
At the beginning of the session he often looks sad and
withdrawn. He gradually relaxes and emotionally
opens up after playing with the art materials. When we were using clay he struggled with
the material. I was also having a
particularly difficult time with the clay and made an oval object that he named
the ‘holy potato.’ It was such a dull
piece of work that I pretended to be an art critic and acclaimed the miraculous
nature of this art piece. He joined in
the play and extended the silliness of the drama until we both were laughing
heartily about the ‘holy potato’ artwork.
He seems to enjoy laughing with me and after this session, he uses
humour in most sessions.
He has the ability to intuitively know what materials he
needs to use. I encourage him to request
the materials and art activities that
feel right for him at the beginning of each session . I introduced him to felt in the third
session. When I have attempted other
interventions with paint he has refused and asked me to get the wool so that he
can make felt.
I have enjoyed watching him make his felt pieces. He has learnt to manage the resistance of the
wool fibres when he lays out the wool.
He articulated that the harder we pulled the more the wool
resisted. He has learnt to gently pull the
wool from the fleece tops with minimal force.
We were able to talk about letting go of the desperate longing for
connection and to accept that often in relationships people can feel consumed
and pull away from this type of connection. He states that he likes the gentle
nature of the wool and how it responds to his gentleness. I imagine it is very different to a lot of
his relationships that have been based on violence and coercion. He is always gentle, considered and calm as
he lays out the wool. He chooses colours
carefully and wets the wool and invites me to help him massage the fibres.
He particularly enjoys the fulling of the wool which locks
the fibres together. I take him outside
and encourage him to express his anger by throwing the felt at a wall. He likes to take a run up and throw the wet
felt as hard as he can. He has stated that the sound of the wool hitting the
wall is particularly satisfying. It
makes a loud ‘thwop’ sound. I use my voice to encourage this expression of
anger. I say things like ‘Let it out’ in
a directive but playful way. He takes this process very seriously. We continue
till he or I say something funny and he feels relaxed. I voice the importance of releasing anger and
that we all experience this emotion. We
talk openly about the main ways that people express anger. Following family violence children seem to do this one
of three ways. The first is by bullying
others, the second is by being the victim of bullies and the third is by self
harming. He acknowledges that he usually chooses to hurt himself.
In the most recent session, he told me about an event that
had occurred at school earlier in the week.
He had made a new friend and they were making some sculptures in the
school yard. Three children came over
and wrecked their creations. He felt so
angry that he picked up a hard plastic stake and whacked it really hard on the
ground. When this did not fully release
his anger he began to hit himself across the face with this stick. He showed me the substantial bruising on his
face that was self inflicted.
I asked him about the
materials he wanted to use and he gently requested wool. He reminded me about a previous interest he
had expressed in making a three dimensional shape like a felted ball. I had forgotten to bring in the stuffing to
go in the centre so we made do with wrapping bubble wrap into a ball that we
then covered in tape to hold it together.
(I have previously
made these balls myself and know that they require a different technique than
our usual process. It is far more challenging than the technique he is used too.
However his measured response made me think he could manage this process. I had imagined
this process was possibly well suited to expressing pain, grief and loss. The felted object is often about the size of
a human heart. When the ‘heart’ is first covered in felt it requires very
gentle massaging of the wool to join the cracks and crevice resulting from
folding a flat piece of felt around the object. It is a slower process that
involves repair and the heart is held in the palm of the hand and massaged very
slowly, gently and carefully.)
I sensed he was wanting to express some of his internal pain
– possibly sadness, loss and grief that lay beneath his anger. I also sensed shame from his traumatic past and
self harming behaviours. He slowly laid out the wool, choosing three tones of
green and wrapped it around the bubble wrap parcel. I took the opportunity to describe this as
his heart. I explained that he was
holding his heart in his hands and that he needed to be gentle and loving with it. I explained that the secret of this process was
to immediately repair the holes or cracks that appeared by massaging gently.
He took the felt heart in his hands and diligently looked
for every crack. He used one finger in a
circular motion to slowly and respectfully massage these wounds till they were
healed and the wool fibres were meshed together and the surface smooth . The room was quiet with only the sounds of
our breath. He was absorbed in the process.
His gaze was completely focused on his heart. His breathing was at first shallow but
gradually became deeper. He held his
heart tenderly in his hands. Once he had repaired the wounds, one hand cupped
his heart and the other slowly massaged it.
The soapy wool allowed his hand to glide smoothly over the warm fibres. As his witness, the intensity of these
moments was overwhelming. I felt his
pain and his desperate desire to heal his wounded heart. I felt emotion wash over me and felt the need
to shed some tears for this young boys pain.. I considered if I should acknowledge
the moving nature of this by crying but decided that my tears could be a
distraction. I sat in silence holding
back tears, feeling deeply connected with him and his pain. We were seated on the floor and I was at
right angles to him. I occasionally
spoke some words trying to name his feelings – the wounds, his desire to heal,
his sadness and pain and the way he so tenderly held his own heart in his
hands. I named the sense of smoothness
as his hands glided over the wool and soap suds. I described how it neatly fitted into his
hand so he could protect it. I talked of
his courage and how the bubblewrap gave his heart an inner strength. He said, “it feels heavy to me.” At this
moment he seemed to exude both strength and fragility. I wondered whether this was the first time he
was able to lovingly hold his painful feelings and to gently care for his own wounds
and grief without hurting himself.
He looked up at me, concerned and said, “Are we going to
throw it against the wall?” I said that this was his heart and we were most
certainly not going to damage it by
throwing it against the wall . He was visibly
relieved. I was pleased that he had made a choice not to harm his heart.
Towards the end of the session, I told him that I had found
this session very moving and an honour to sit with him in this space. I
expressed that I had almost cried and he also said that it was very emotional
for him. I asked whether we could talk
to his mum about what had occurred. He
agreed.
We were still sitting on the floor when his mother came in
and sat on the couch. I explained that
we had made his heart and how he had lovingly massaged the cracks. The heart held both his pain and his
hope. His mother covered her face and
began to cry sensing the deep significance of this session. As I explained I held his heart showing her
how she too could hold his pain by massaging the heart. When she recovered her composure, she took
his heart gently in her hands and massaged it silently as the tears ran down
her cheeks. As her voice quivered with
emotion, she looked at him and said she loved him deeply and would do anything
to help him with this pain.
We were able to have a conversation about the deep pain he
experiences particularly at school and the ways he expresses this. He said he wanted to stop hurting
himself. We made plans to meet with his
school to discuss ways of keeping him emotionally and physically safer during
recess and lunchtimes.
He left the session with his heart still cupped in his
hands. As he was leaving, he used his hands as a scale testing its weight with
an up and down motion and said ‘my heart feels lighter. ‘
His mother turned to me and made a silent acknowledgement of
this poignant comment by holding her hands in a gesture of prayer and bowing
her head in my direction.
Something profound happened today.
A mother symbolically
held her sons wounded heart in her hands. She felt his pain and tried to help him to
heal.
A young boy managed to feel his deep pain and then chose to
self heal rather than self harm.
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