Inside/Outside

I’ve been away from my blog because I’ve been trying to take a break and clear my head for a while. After creatively hitting rock bottom two weeks ago, I knew I needed to just stop everything. All last week I took naps, worked in the garden, went to the gym, and spent the weekend in NYC.   The other thing I’ve been doing is reaching out to my friends and colleagues, discussing the work, talking through my creative process, and getting some much needed support and encouragement. One of my friends put it simply as “Don’t give up.”  I was also pleasantly surprised by many of the comments I received online, my last post had the most comments I’ve ever received on a single post and many of them were substantial and very thoughtful.

Last night I started to have a more concrete conversation about possibilities for the work with my husband, which felt good. I realized through talking to him that I didn’t want to simply rehash the same idea that the drawings explored, rather I want to work on another facet of my experience with depression. One idea I’ve been contemplating is the concept of how you truly feel emotionally on the inside and how you have to behave on the outside due to external pressures. I’ve spent the majority of my life acting  like everything was fine when really I was an emotional wreck on the inside. It’s an extraordinary amount of effort to put on this mask on a daily basis, and I think it’s an experience that many of us can relate to, regardless of whether or not you have depression. Just last week when I was falling apart, I noticed the little things: having to reply “good” when someone asked how I was. In these brief conversations, no one ever says they’re doing badly. So that’s where I am now, I have the concept but now it’s a matter of translating this visually which is what I’m work on brainstorming today. Already it’s getting better.

Advertisement