Senin, 30 Oktober 2017

My Journey Using Art, Visual and Written Words, as a Healing Tool

Diposting oleh mirefasdiari di 03.16

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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