Art and Connection
I have recently become friends with a man with whom I attended high school. We didn’t connect all those years ago, even though as we have come to discover, we have had many similar experiences, but we have now, through art. My offering of a class on Nuerographic Art prompted him to reach out to me because as he shared with me, “it stimulates my brain.” We set up a Zoom chat and I, dare I say we, immediately fell in friendship. That was April 12, 2022. We have been in touch almost every day since then.
He suffered a brain injury a few years ago and has shared with me how the system has failed him on multiple occasions. It’s frustrating to hear his story, however, I do my best to focus on being a friend and creating a safe space for him to express whatever comes up. His listening ear and compassion towards my life’s frustrations, and a general, genuine curiosity about me have made me feel more real in this world. By that I mean, seen, I guess, not invisible, nor labeled wrongly because of an assumption of what someone may think I am. I have felt misunderstood much of my life. I am reminded of the double slit theory in quantum physics, where an experiment is conducted with electrons and how they behave when they are observed. When electrons are observed they behave in a different way than when they are not. I notice that in myself, behaving in a different way because I feel seen. I feel a responsibility to do better because someone is observing me, seeing me. As I write that I’m wondering if the idea of God should be doing that for me, and then asking myself why it doesn’t. Well, it hasn’t. But I feel we are all extensions of the divine and maybe I am noticing the divine within my new dear friend and that is becoming a powerful catalyst to notice the divine within myself.
My new friend is an amazing artist. He works in such a unique way, perhaps due to his injury. He paints on plexiglass and puts the front down first and then adds the background, I say he buries it. In my mind he is accessing his vulnerability and then covering it to hide it, but that may be what I do. I am learning about myself through his art. His art stimulates my brain and opens my heart. My son and I stared at a photo of one of his pieces for half an hour, just talking about what we see and how it makes us feel, and enjoying the opportunity to see into each other’s hearts and thoughts, and the way we understand the world, and our history of experiences that make us who we are, so unique. It was a very tender conversation and allowed a deeper connection between us, because I was seeing into him and he into me. My friend’s art provided the medium that accessed the vulnerable depths of the stories we hold in ourselves, which for me correlates to the subconscious. I often talk about music and how we have a song within us but don’t have the skill to make the music, the sound, or find the lyrics, and when we hear a song that resonates with the unnamed song within us, it’s such a relief to hear it because the musicians did what you couldn’t do, and maybe you didn’t know how tense you were with this looming un-expression until you feel the release of it by hearing exactly what needed to be expressed. It feels familiar and is a comfort because you don’t feel so alone, this idea has come alive and there is connection in the expressing of it. That’s how I feel when I share his art with my loved ones, and even strangers. I feel connection to their inner world and I’ll tell you, people can surprise you in the most beautiful way.
The above photo is the front and below is the back of the painting I stared at with my son. He bought it, it’s his first purchase of an art piece. I find myself so proud of him. I am reminded of a quote that goes something like, “ where your treasures lie, so lies your heart.” I interpret that as, “pay attention to what people spend their money on, it shows what they treasure.
