State of Mind Games

I am an artist and potter but my emotional state has fractured and caused my creative-self to become quite paralyzed; I make work but slowly and in fits and starts. While I can certainly identify the current nCOVID-19 pandemic and the dysfunctional Trump administration response as the culprit for this, believe it or not, my current mindset actually has less to do with Trump and more to do with my personal life.

While I am no different than any other human being, I do sometimes fee like I live an absurd life. I hesitate to pick a starting point because I fear I'll end up tracking back to my very first birthday. Having said that, for several years prior to Trump, I had already been dealing with all kinds of personal family baggage while also going through the roller coaster journey of menopause. At first I could trace all the weird unsettling things I felt from about 2006-2015 back to hormones but now I can’t tell anymore. I'm finally post-menopausal and I was hoping that the anxiety and tendency towards depression would ease with time as I readjusted to aging in my body and mind. I was looking forward to embracing a new, aging me. What weird journey would I be going on? How would my body change? What would I notice?

It hasn’t happened. Unfortunately, as I was shifting, so too was my whole living set-up. My elderly mother came to live on the property with us (in a separate cabin, thankfully) and now I realize, she is the external origin of my anxiety and depression. It’s been a sad realization but so many pieces of how I became have fallen into place. I now understand on a cellular level why I carry the fears, self-doubt and anxieties that I do. I have re-examined my childhood memories and relationships and the weight and effect they had in shaping how I approach and view things. Childhood learning is deep learning, deep emotional learning and it’s very hard to undo certain kinds of damaging mental and emotional habits particularly when you find yourself still in the environment of the original stimulus. Intellectual knowledge and maturity don’t readily translate into emotional maturity. Sadly. It has been and continues to be extremely uncomfortable. My guilt and anxiety levels flailed about from day to day when my mother first came out here but I felt like I was getting a handle on things and would learn and grow. Then, around the same time, the 2016 election happened and the Trump ShitShow began.

And now Coronavirus.

And even when this ends, still, Climate Change.

Several years ago I looked up at the sky and said out loud, "Really? I get to age and watch civilization burn at the same time?"

Where I am and where I want to be are two very different places. I think I could handle the uncertainty of all the current world and geopolitical happenings and still make art/work were it not for the spectre of trying to do it while under the emotional canopy of taking care of my mother with her constant inspection of me and all of my movements. Let me be clear: My mother is a wonderful person, truly. Every one who knows her, loves her. She’s funny, loving, charismatic, great to be around. But as my mother, she sucks, frankly. She becomes “other.” I am the conduit for her emotional frailty. I am, to her and to other family members, an extension of her person and not my own. I think I moved 740 miles away to get away from that toxic influence. It worked. But now I am the person taking care of her and every day, EVERY DAY, I am back in that relationship whether I want to be there or not. I know what the solution is but it’s unavailable to me right now. Some problems have no immediate solutions. Some problems are about resiliency and endurance and the self-discovery that comes with it. Who am I and what are my core values? To take care. To be kind. To have compassion. To do the right thing. To maintain boundaries. Every day I check in with myself on those things and pat myself on the back for what I do accomplish.

Pinched Form, 2008

Porcelain, glaze -fired, cone 10

7"w x12"h x 7"d

While I have finished a kiln load of work, I am waiting on some of this pandemic stimulus money to help with the logistics of online sales and shipping. However, I need to do more, more that feeds my soul. It’s been a while since I made any artwork. That’s on the agenda next. I have a feeling it won’t be pretty.