A Story: Part 1

I'm quite the perfectionist. I've had incredibly high expectations of myself ever since I was a little girl. My parents used to tell me they didn't care about my grades because I cared enough for the three of us. As I was growing up and entered into high school, the expectations I had of myself, to please the people around me, became debilitating. 

I thought I could make everyone happy. 

I thought I could be everyone's best friend.

I thought I'd never hurt anyone's feelings.

These things backfired. As it turns out, when you subconsciously think you're unlimited, and spread yourself too thin, the people around you get hurt. You sell yourself as more than you can be to others. You lead people on [even unintentionally] and damage the people you care about.

As I lost my closest friends, and I hurt boy after boy after boy, I began to hate myself.

I didn’t want to hurt people. I didn’t want to make people feel as if they were just another number in my life. I saw lonely people and wanted them to feel like they had a friend, so I tried to be that friend. I wanted people to feel like they were cared for, so I tried to care for them. As I was unable to fill ALL the voids, in ALL the people’s lives, my body began to break down, piece by piece. I couldn’t do it all. I couldn’t be all things to all people. I couldn’t be perfect, or meet my own expectations, or the expectations of others.

Depression is a strange thing. The way it can eat away at your body and cause illness. The way it can make you want to sleep all the time, yet unable to find rest at all. A dark cloud settled on me for years. I became suicidal. I hit rock bottom and was miraculously saved. But, the healing didn’t start there.

After many years, Divine intervention, therapy, medication, maturing, marriage, church, community, and eventually ART, I’ve begun to heal.

When I first [re]entered a creative practice eight years ago, structured illustration and realism was all I knew. I found myself, once again, bound by expectations. I was more stressed when I left my studio than when I went in. Nothing I created was never going to be “good enough.” It was never going to be perfect.

I happened upon abstract work and my life is forever changed. Abstract painting has constantly reminded me— my work is about the process, not the end result. Over the last 4 years, I’ve had a beautiful, “soul work” process to fall back on. The impact my painting has had on my hands, in the studio, has since overflowed, into my heart and into my life outside of the studio. I now have more grace for myself than ever in my life before. I can now see the beauty of being a “work in progress” instead of expecting to be a perfect “end result.”

When I started painting these structured florals at the beginning of this year, I had no idea where the inspiration was coming from. As I’ve continued to dig in, and explore this new style, I can step back and truly see the HEALING it represents. I’ve painted loose and flowing abstracts for years. Work that reminds me I’m not perfect and not in control. Slowly, as I’ve healed, there is now a FREEDOM to bring structure back into my work.

While these florals are still abstract, they represent big things the Lord has done in my life. From the day He saved me, when I tried to wreck my car, until now, the work has been hard, slow, and painful. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The story of beauty that has come from that brokenness cannot be told any other way.

And did you see how COLORFUL they are? That’s a story for another day. I hope you’ll come back for part 2.