In meeting a traumatized artist…
When I meet an artist who has been traumatized, as most have, i like to listen, and sense who they were, when they were safe to be themselves. And work from there.
For me, to go a bit behind the mask and offer something which matters (like an interview when two people understand one another’s struggles to be-a real encounter in safety requires enough trust to expose ourselves-so we must be real with one another. That’s the setting where Love can enter.
To go into their art often helps-to discuss what’s going on creatively, and meet them there.
We experience our personal terrors, but behind the coping masks which we put on, there is the real self yearning to be seen, loved and known. To love on the person just behind the mask. That interest me.
We are all masked. But depending on the levels of trauma we have known and embodied, we have more clever or layered masks. I like to see people as they are, off stage, and just being who they were meant to be. Lots of my life, is about hearing confessions as a result, so a person can get towards a moment of true encounter.