Virginia Woolf once said, "How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?" The first time I stumbled upon this quote my heart exploded and I screamed, "This is it! This is what I've been trying to say but couldn't figure out how!" After some deep soul searching I came to the conclusion that art saves lives, and when you live in a society that is based on greed, manipulation, and anguish, sometimes a paintbrush is really all you need.
A couple of years ago, my therapist handed me a blank sheet of paper and said "Draw what you're feeling in this exact moment." The first time I tried this exercise the only thing I sketched out was an empty wine bottle and a stick figure of a girl picking flowers and eating them. I wasn't sure what my therapist was trying to uncover but I let her work her magic and started to draw what I felt every day before going bed. As the months went on, I gave myself permission to open up more. I had been hiding my artistic abilities somewhere in the dusty corners of my ribcage, never giving them the chance to heal whatever wounds were still fresh on my skin (This is a metaphor, I was never physically harmed). I grew up in a privileged household. Two perfect parents, a white picket fence with a white fluffy dog and a white BMW. I was an only child who had it made, but just because my silver spoon fed me well doesn't mean I didn't have bad days.
I was always surrounded by art, even when I wasn't. At first, it was background noise. I grew up in a dance studio thinking that the only outcome was a trophy and a crown. For so long I had viewed dance as a talent and not a way of life. That is until I reached high school and had no other way of expressing myself except through photography, music, poetry, etc. That's when my therapist suggested the drawing exercise and that's when I finally opened up the door to let art and healing become one.
I never went through a tragedy or experienced grief, at least not yet. But I do have bad days when I wake up feeling like the world is collapsing on my chest. And I know that's nothing compared to what other people are going through, but I guess the moral of my story is art truly does save lives. When you feel like the universe is against you and there's no possible way out except for the trigger, please open up your heart and grab a paintbrush, a pen, a camera, a CD. Please allow yourself to feel, to react, to hurt, to heal. Please don't make a final decision based off of a temporary problem and please, use the paintbrush instead of the trigger.
