NUMBER 1

"My learned inability to express big and difficult emotions has plagued me my whole life. I smiled my way through so many painful situations and swallowed so much rage, disappointment, resentment, grief. Suppressed emotions and experiences became painful secrets...I stayed in painful, toxic relationships, and I didn't tell anyone I had been sexually asulted until ten years later. I buried it all.... then I got really life-threateningly sick."

"Part of my healing has been learning how to bring up all the feelings and let them out, to voice my fear and anger and sadness, to name the things that happened to me, to talk about my brother. To talk about me. "

Artist Notes

In the early stages of the Women's Voices project, one of my male friends (also a fellow artist) stopped by the studio and I showed him this painting. I explained the theme of women not being allowed to express anger. His reaction was quick and sincere. He said, growing up, it was clear to him that men were supposed to be angry. He said, "We could only have two emotions: angry and fine". I think about that statement a lot. He was "supposed to" be angry but didn't have it in him. What an amazing contrast. And, ironically, painting NUMBER 2 is about being "fine".

48x60" mixed media on canvas

Theme

Women aren't allowed to be angry. Anger feels like lava inside. But don't let it out, ice it over.

The Interview

She doesn't remember ever being told that it wasn't acceptable for girls to be angry, but it was obvious. There was no room for big emotions. Only men were allowed to be angry, and God was allowed to be angry.

Her brother became sick with cancer when he was just two years old and passed away at age 7. She was two years younger, age 5 when he died. Her earliest years were lived under the weight of her brother's illness, with very little conversation about it or any tools to process it. Her parents obviously had their hands full, and out of love, she couldn't possibly give them any additional stress. She would do her best to always "be a good girl," and not add any more emotions to the mix.

What does that anger feel like? "It's so suppressed it's hard to even access it. It makes me want to cry...I feel like I hold in lava sometimes. But it just eats me up. You're not allowed to let it out. Then it turns into that hard rock...Like ice on top. It makes me feel sad...that prettiness is on top."