By Jane Edberg
Art is essential.
When I was four, while getting dressed for some special occasion, for some unknown reason, possibly the removal of tight curlers or getting ringlets brushed and hair-sprayed into curls, I went into a rage, held my breath, turned blue and passed out.
‘High-strung and bloody spoiled,’ Dad said, exaggerating his Londoner’s accent.
When I came to, Mum asked me, ‘Are you the Queen of England?’
I’d heard her comment to mean, ‘There is nothing special about you.’
Soon after, in the backyard, I screamed, ‘Yes, I am the Queen of England.’
Barefooted, in a pink chiffon dress, I squeezed dirt pudding between my toes and swung a stick through wet ground to let loose some fury. Little me slung sludge onto the house walls. Blobs of earth meandered down stucco. I whacked black mud into Mum’s flower garden and slayed hollyhocks and tiger lilies till they drooped and dripped brown.
I’ll never forget the slam of the screen door and Mum’s cheeks, beet red, wildcat green eyes, teeth bared. Her aproned waist and impractical shoes. Stiff bouffant hair. I can still feel her wrangling my arm, smacking my legs.
My art-self emerged when I beat the earth and withstood the slap. The wild mud swackery became my first art-making or mark-making or, more precisely, art awakening, the autonomy of self-expression. The power of art-self enabled me to make someone feel how I felt, to change the look on Mum’s face. A creative portal opened wide. Worth getting smacked, or what—back in the ’60s—a British mother would call a good hiding.
As a quiet child, an observer, I was often misinterpreted as shy. Or seen as anxious, given that I bit my fingernails to the quick. Curious, experimental, perceived as mischievous. My imagination often considered weird and crazy. I personified the word misfit. Although extra sensitive, I had learned to be strong-willed yet patient. Often referred to as a tomboy. High strung and spoiled? Not really.
Learning how to harness creativity, I continued to express my insides outwardly, visually; that is how I processed everything in my world. Art, the making and unmaking, creating, imagining, and dreaming, helped me to investigate, to problem solve while developing, sustaining, and honouring my authentic self.
DEATH IS INSIDE LIFE
Lose will lure you
to a place of no return.
Beckon you into oblivion.
Forced down into that cave where the call is to go deeper,
you’ll try to surface,
frantically beg to go back.
Stay.
Draw a memorable picture.
Take notes.
Devoid of helm,
acknowledge your fear.
Start digging.
Life is inside death.
You’ll think you can have the fates over for dinner,
discuss your time here,
your way out.
The who, what, where, when, and how of it.
But you have been served,
and the fates are a no show.
Vigilance in every breath,
you’ll tiptoe around,
secure the windows and doors,
pull the blinds down over your being.
But don’t forget to be conscious.
The underworld is not separate,
there lies the map of the quicksands of denial,
and the bedrock of reality.
Crawl, walk,
then run, to the new
life that awaits you.
ACCEPTING THE GIFT
Grief is in the details, so is the healing.
December 2, 2017, nineteen years had passed since my son took his last breath.
There were two Nandas: nineteen years alive, and nineteen years dead. And two moons: an alive-Nanda moon, and a moon of loss.
Writing at my desk doing memory loop de loops, time escaped me. By 3:00 a.m., I swung like a pendulum from the arc of Nanda’s life through the arc of his death. Life is next to death. Death is next to life. You can’t have one without the other.
I did the maths. Nineteen plus nineteen. Thirty-eight. But totalling Nanda to thirty-eight years was a conceptual error. I had spent nineteen years mothering him and nineteen years grieving him. He’d forever be nineteen.
According to a lunar calendar, the full moon was due to roll into the sky by 7:00 a.m. I wanted to cry, but the tear-gates were stuck. Not grief-cry. I wanted to cry for joy, right beside the sad. I stood to light a candle next to my most loved photograph of Nanda, his arms wide open, and gazed at his beautiful face.
‘If I live to be a hundred years old and I am sixty-two now, will I have to repeat nineteen years of grief twice more or is this the threshold at which I …’
A stone caught in my throat. Back at my desk, I tried to write it. I couldn’t even think the words—much less write them. Goodbye. Let Go. After nineteen years of metabolising grief, I had developed a solid sense of self. I wrote: farewell to struggling. The dam at the tear-gates swelled. As far as letting go, I would never let go of Nanda, but I was willing to let go of expecting his return and always needing to make sense of my loss. I was ready to unconditionally welcome any organic bit of him that happened to float by. The more I accepted the reality of his death, the more grateful I felt having gone through that process. I was done with grief. Can anyone ever be done with grief?
Art did not save me. Instead, it supported me as I leaned into that grief. It taught me the language of sorrow. Gave me the means to express my loss. Making art in grief was a reVISION of Nanda’s life and mine. Rediscovery. Reinvention. Restrengthening. Reorganisation. Resocialization. A massive reBEING. I felt thankful to be alive. Most of my life that had not been true. Grief is a complicated gift, one I had come to appreciate and accept.
I switched off the lights, took another glance at Nanda, and blew out the candle. A wisp of smoke spiralled like a spirit and flew through the open window to our garden silvered with dew. Roses glistened next to twinkling baby’s breath in a halo of alyssum. And although the moon could not be seen, I imagined everything bathed in moonglow. A river of love rushed through me and the tear-gates opened.
I missed him, but I wasn’t caught in a vice of pining and aching. No more impossible mourning. Rarely longing. Well, sometimes. When I wanted to, I could conjure grief, dive into that well. But over time, I needed to visit loss less and less. In truth, Nanda wasn’t completely gone. Love remained. Art remained.
After all, love and art transform and outlast grief.
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process.
Art and creativity, the creative process are essential.
I have come to believe that life can’t be done by waiting around for stuff to happen. Yes, of course stuff happens. But what if we engage life and feed it, show up as an active willing participant, and most of all steer ourselves in the direction we would like our life to go. No guarantees but having some say and do in the process of living a life creatively, we might discover a richer way of being, seeing, and showing up. We do have choices. Even in the midst of chaos, upheaval, devastation, staying mindful-heartfull and curious might serve us and everyone much better. It is a practice, isn’t it? A balancing act. Why not do it with an active imagination. Make art in the face of whatever comes your way. Wishing you a creative life.
In terms of the Creative Process website, I'd welcome more how-to videos or interviews about how one incorporates creativity into their lives and how the creative process has saved them.
I appreciate the diversity of art forms in the creative process website. And the inclusivity and educational outreach. Also the aesthetics of the website and all the offerings are top quality and well presented.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
I had used art to process a traumatic childhood and when my son died, I got stuck, so I thought. Death seemed more powerful than art. I was mistaken, art gave me a way to reimagine loss, to process grief, and create meaning from that devastation, as well as create a new self worth cherishing along with a new life worth living.
I have yet to do some more exploring of your creative process project and I am sure that will inspire me into new and exciting realms to explore in my art.
