 |
I have a young Facebook friend on the other side of the
country who likes to draw. I try to give him pointers long-distance, but that
isn’t always easy. His problems are less technical than emotional. He was the
victim of significant and deep abuse and is now separated from his family. He has
a creative block—lots of ability, lots of feelings, but he’s been taught (or
taught himself) to repress them so deeply that even expressing them through
drawing is difficult. His default behavior is to anesthetize his feelings with
drugs, not unpack them and look at them.
He often asks, “What should I draw?” This is not a question most
teens ask; usually their ideas outrun their skill. It doesn’t mean his
creativity is impaired; it means he has his thoughts and emotions bottled up.
The genie-in-the-bottle is so big that it must be unpacked and examined piece
by piece.
If he were here, I would have him draw and paint still
lives. They have no meaning of their own. They are a means through which art
students learn technical skills. However, powerful emotions have a way of
leaking out around the edges no matter what the subject matter is.
 |
Red Poppies and Daisies, 1890, Vincent van Gogh
|
Yesterday, I was coming back from New Jersey, and found this
Facebook message from him: “How do I make drawings of how I feel? What do I
draw? I want to draw it but I don’t know how.”
In recent weeks, my friend has made a good start by drawing the
temple that symbolized his abuse. He has drawn it consumed by fire, wrapped in
a snake, destroyed by a fire-eating dragon. It doesn’t take a psychologist to
see this as a leap forward.
 |
| I often refer to Vincent van Gogh when discussion the importance of practice in drawing. This is Miners in the snow at dawn, drawn in 1880. |
Earlier this year, I wrote about a test called the House-Tree-Person.
As initially designed by John Buck in 1948, this test was meant to be purely subjective—the
artist would draw a house, a tree, and a person. The psychologist would
interpret them.
 |
| And this is Road with Pollard Willows and Man with Broom, from 1881. What a year with a sketchbook can do! |
I suggested to my young friend that he start by drawing these
three things. They are both universal and meaningful, because they represent
home, life and growth. But I’m a painting teacher, not a therapist. Any of you
with proper qualifications who want to chime in with suggestions, they would be
very helpful.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
