The egg drawings were spontaneous, expressive, and cathartic. But the paintings that used the egg drawings as references lacked the same heartbeat as the drawings. In a graduate school critique they were condemned to execution with the decree to “destroy them.” So, I got paper and charcoal, took a moment to feel the emotions I was experiencing, and started spilling them out onto the paper.
I was flooded with memories of being told how I, as a baby, was left alone to cry myself to sleep. The story is this: My parents and grandparents had played with me before my bedtime until I was eleven months old. Since my brother was due in a month, my parents had decided that my bedtime routine had to change. I was to remain in bed once put there and any extended bedtime play was over.
I cried for hours. I cried for several nights. On one of these nights my grandparents, with whom my parents were living at the time, left the apartment because they couldn’t bear to hear their granddaughter’s cries go unattended. Finally, after three nights I gave up.
The rejection of the egg paintings presented an opportunity for me to redirect my focus. Instead of referencing completed drawings as inspiration when I began a new canvas or paper, I began exploring unresolved feelings and emotions. Raw feelings of anger and resentment began to surface. The drawings were spontaneous, direct and honest. The world didn’t fall apart. I had survived the onslaught of releasing suppressed feeling.
I had found a heartbeat.
