My name is
Emiria and I am from Indonesia. I'm an artist. I have had a strong
interest in art since I was a child, drawing since approximately at 4 years old
and writing journal at 7 years old. I love art from inside my heart. Through
art, I learned how to be creative, open-minded, responsible, patient,
persistent, and confident. The most important thing is art helped me in my
self-transformation process. Like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, art helps
me to deeply understand myself--who I am, who I want to be in the future.
First, Art helped me to find self-identity in adolescent stage.
There was a moment when I felt everything was all right. My life was okay, everything
seemed to run well, and I got things that I had expected. In that phase, I
already lead my life under a self-fulfilling prophecy, the other’s belief
and expectation that has been holding me since I was born. I realized it was
totally false. At that time, I often had written daily journal just to express
my thought and feeling. Writing journal has opened communication between you
and your inner self. You try to be honest to yourself. The more you write,
the more you can hear the voice of yourself that gives an answer, an
inspiration and a guidance to solve your problems. Day by day, your awareness
has improved to catch the all intuition surround you. Until one day, I
finally realized that I cannot deny to myself that it is not what I want to be,
to be someone who directed by the other even your parents. So, I needed to
prove them that I have to be myself, I had to get out of my comfort zone, dare
to take a risk, dare to be different, ignore what people say, which it is
impossible for me to reach my dream and confidently go my way.
When I
was in early adulthood stage, the process of change was
getting more difficult. I felt I was in life crisis. I often felt in bad
temper, angry with myself, blamed the situation, because I did not know what I
should do. That is why I used art as a therapy to express my feeling.
Self-expression in art can be seen from my painting, “Merbabu”, inspired by my
first experience in hiking Merbabu Mountain, one of the famous volcanic
mountains in Indonesia. It was a great experience for me as I saw God’s
real painting with my own two eyes which made me feel curious to replicate it
on a canvas. I feel the same way or pattern in every time I have to express myself
through art, it always starts from negative point first, the darkest
side or figure in ourselves that want to be revealed and released, our inner
critics and irrational beliefs, anger and sadness, negative thoughts and
feelings, and worries and anxieties, and all bad stuffs that seems
permanently stuck in my mind and soul which hide and lock my inner self. So,
in the beginning of the painting, I poured all the black paint out, and
Boom, letting me express my anger and any negative emotion until I felt
more relaxed. My step-by-step struggle to finish what I had started was
therapeutic, although I thought completing it was totally impossible. Finally,
I achieved the result I wanted.
The most important lesson I have got is we need to appreciate the
process. Realize or not, in this moment, most of people in the world tends
to think instantly, the fastest way to get things what they want without
considering the effect whether is good or not for his/her life even the
other. They ignore the art of hard work to be a successful person.
However, in art, we respect the process of making a masterpiece
artwork. Although, there's a time when we fail to make a perfect
illustration we wanted, our belief, patient, persistent, commitment form a
spontaneously creative action which makes the final result meet our self-satisfaction.
-Every time I force myself, I open an
opportunity for my best of me to come out-
Art is not just expressing your true feelings, but also pursuing your
real desire. Inspired by the quote of The Secret movie-- The law attraction is
working in every second, everything we think ad we feel is creating our future,
I used art as a perfect tool to visualize my dream, to attract romantic love,
getting married with someone I trust. Actually, there was the time that I
thought love was so impossible for me. I found struggles in having
relationships, since the real my love experiences never gave me any good news because
of trauma of past experiences. I just wondered what happened and try to talk to
my inner self what’s wrong with me? One day, Unexpectedly, I saw all the art
works I have made. Then I realized that something was wrong in my works
of art, which coincidentally never attracted love. This idea came as I observed
one of my works called “The Flower Garden” which continued from my previous
painting, Merbabu. That painting was zoomed- in version from the last version
of “Merbabu” painting. Based I found on the colour and the whole theme of the
work, it showed a loneliness and emptiness hidden within the bright beautiful
blooming flowers. It also showed the complexity of the technique.
Since that moment, I tried to forgive the past. Even if there were a
dozen painful love experiences, there will always be a silver lining to it.
That is the perfect plan that God made for me for certain reason that I had to
find. Then, I began to find a hope, any kind of possibilities that make it come
true. I had to reflect on myself, find inner beauty in me if I wanted to
discover a better and perfect result. So, I decided to make a set of artworks
in which the theme was inner beauty and hope, started in early July 2016 as art
therapy.
I totally enjoyed the process of creating artwork. It felt like I
was totally in it. At a certain point, it gave me power to believe that someday
there will be someone who will come into my life. Through art, I began to be
aware that, “You have to go confidently to the direction of your dream. Live
the life that you have imagined!” Finally, I did not have to wait for so long,
only few days passed, and God answered my prayer in an unexpected way. I met
Someone a truly wonderful person in early August 2016 came to my life in early
August 2016 and proposed to marry me short after. On 29 January 2017, we
were married. I am thankful of my life for everything that happens, thank you
God for everything.
At the end, as the transformation of the simple caterpillar into a
butterfly, the human being undergoes an equally dramatic transformation. It is
kind of a great journey full of struggle to increase my awareness and find the
depths of my soul, though its deeper meaning would await discovery through
experience. Art helped me to express myself and taught me how to be
creative, confident, and persistent. I personally think that art can function
as self-therapy and helps to develop a person’s personality. Therefore, I want
to be an art therapist. I believe, in my role as, I will be able to help other
people in finding relief from overwhelming emotions or trauma. At present, only
few places that practicing art therapy exist in Indonesia. I also hardly found institutions
that offer art therapy courses.
I am also actively involved in the art community since 2014, in which I
have the ability to exhibit my artwork. I have joined a local art community as
Coordinator of the Education Division since 2015. The main responsibility is to
organize events, such as, internal and external workshops for profit and social
charity purposes. Working Involvement with for this community has given provide
me the opportunity to meet and interact with inspirational people, both artists
and non-artists. Based on my discussion with them I found out, I find that many
they people are keen to explore and analyse art from a psychology perspective.
They believe by learning the artwork, they will understand more about person’s
personality and perspective.
I am excited
to further study Healing with art Course provide by Florida University. I
believe the program could offer a great opportunity to expand my knowledge
which will support my future career.
Sincerely,
Emiria
Farahdina
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