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Theses and Dissertations

2006-04-18

Fix

Kathryn Williams Brigham Young University - Provo

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BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Williams, Kathryn, "Fix" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 418. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/418

This Selected Project is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. FIX

Kathryn Williams Knudsen

A selected project report submitted to the faculty of

Brigham Young University

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Fine Arts

Department of Visual Arts

Brigham Young University

GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL

of a selected project report submitted by

Kathryn Williams Knudsen

This selected project report has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory.

Date Peter H. Everett, Chair, Graduate Commmittee

Date Gary Barton

Date Joseph E. Ostraff

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

As chair of the candidate’s graduate committee, I have read the master’s project of Kathryn Williams Knudsen in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographical style are consistent and acceptable and fulfill university and department style requirements; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the graduate committee and is ready for submission to the university library.

Date Peter Everett, Chair, Graduate Committee

Accepted for the Department W. Wayne Kimball, Graduate Coordinator

Accepted for the College Rory Scanlon, Associate Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication

PREFACE

For the past 15 years I have been struggling to recover from the consequences of sexual abuse. I have been involved with many self abusive habits, including cutting different areas of my body. I have come to the understanding that these addictive habits evolved as a direct result of sexual abuse. The stories I am about to relate tell the fears and difficulties I have experienced as well as an account of the tremendous power that art has provided me towards a full recovery. I am writing this memoir in hopes that those who read it will better understand the consequences of sexual abuse, the importance of support and the way in which art can act as an effective form of therapy.

I need to make art because it keeps me alive. It feeds me and makes my life livable. I realize that not everyone will understand or appreciate what I create. I realize that making art is always going to be something difficult for people to understand. But I don’t care. I don’t care because I have to make art. I just have to do it. Just like someone somewhere has to jump over a pole and win a gold medal. It keeps me healthy and provides me with the outlet I need. And so I’ve come to the understanding that I make artwork in order to live.

I have discovered through my own experiences, that abuse is not something many people feel comfortable talking about. Often when abuse is talked about, people become withdrawn or nervous, afraid to approach the subject. This creates a tremendous strain for those who are trying to overcome the problems associated with abuse. What people need to understand is regardless of the difficulties surrounding communication, abuse happens and it happens to a lot of people.

Using art as therapy allows my feelings to take form. They are outside of me for the moment. I can look at them and try to assess them. I have never told anyone the exact details of the abuse as words do not suffice. I have written down a number of detailed memories but I can’t ever write it down the way it actually felt or feels. I know what I’m trying to say but words do not suffice. Throughout my graduate studies art has been an integral part of my healing. I knew I could not erase my abuse but I have found that by incorporating my art as a means of therapy, I have been able to find an increased sense of peace and strength. I have been able to fix things, things that before seemed unfixable. When I first began the project, aesthetic assumptions did not seem as important when compared to the benefits which came from the tangible physical process of making things. The process provided an outlet that wasn’t going to hurt me.

After continued therapy and assessment, it became easier and easier to recognize art as therapy. I was learning to channel my feelings and express things I couldn’t express before. I was beginning to heal.

For many the process alone could be sufficient; however I could not be fulfilled unless the work also incorporated a satisfying sense of aesthetics. I wanted people to see my work. I wanted them to see it and feel motivated to talk about abuse. I needed aesthetics to lure an audience that might otherwise not approach such subjects. While the main concept behind the work focuses on the actions of degradation, cleansing and reconstructing, I considered the work not only to be helpful therapeutically but also aesthetically pleasing. The work tells a history of the artistic processes which evolved as I continued through therapy. The work includes layers which indicate the advancement from fear and trauma to life and beauty. While parts of this document deal with extremely difficult issues, I have allowed the text to wander, including more mundane or everyday diary type entries. I believe the manner of the text correlates directly with the art, emphasizing not only the brutality of abuse but also the hope and sense of achievement art has provided me as productive means of therapy. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ...... vii A Slight Set Back ...... 54 A Good Life ...... x Bad Connection ...... 56 My Mother ...... 2 Womb ...... 58 My Father ...... 4 Candy ...... 60 My Husband ...... 6 What’s on the Menu Today ...... 62 Pure ...... 8 Steve ...... 64 The Best One ...... 10 Satisfying the Urge ...... 66 My Biggest Fear ...... 12 Bloody Snowflake ...... 68 Escape Plans ...... 14 The Smell of Paint ...... 70 Little Blue Stud ...... 16 Four Years Old ...... 72 The Screwdriver Incident ...... 18 A Beautiful Hole ...... 74 The Most Outstanding Artist ...... 20 Forgotten Fabric ...... 76 Fake Bruises ...... 22 Portraits ...... 78 Body Fat ...... 24 Clouds ...... 80 Ceramics ...... 26 Fist Fight ...... 82 Jolly Rancher Diet ...... 28 Blobs ...... 84 Attention ...... 30 “F” ...... 86 College ...... 32 Shapes ...... 88 Playing The Victim ...... 34 Light ...... 90 Cutting ...... 36 Garbage ...... 92 I Stopped ...... 38 Color Aid ...... 94 Flesh Landscapes ...... 40 Type Rope Walking ...... 96 Dr. Ellis ...... 42 Washing ...... 98 Dreams ...... 44 Stitching ...... 100 A Nightly Rituals ...... 46 Colors ...... 102 Art Therapy ...... 48 New Things ...... 104 Picking ...... 50 Fix ...... 106 Little Journals ...... 52

ix A GOOD LIFE

I have not had a bad life. I have had a really good life. My family is good, my friends are good, and I could never have asked for a greater husband. I believe I owe much of what I’ve accomplished to them for their love and support. Brave–a good life 8" x 10"

1 MY MOTHER

My Mother is beautiful, talented and extremely loving.

My Mother made us homemade play dough. She let us use markers and break crayons. We had a large bucket full of crayons and it didn’t matter if you peeled off the wrapper or broke them in half or even melted your drawing in the microwave. There was always an endless supply of glitter, colored paper, glue, ribbon, wire, tissue paper, beads, paints, pencils, stick-on jewels, poster board, tape and scissors. We were free. Free to make whatever we wanted. And it didn’t have to look like anything and it didn’t have to mean anything.

We could make anything. Nothing was impossible. My Mother was the master of creation. Every December she would make a gingerbread house covered with brightly colored candies, chocolate kisses, candy canes, gum drop pine trees, vanilla wafer shingles and anything else she could think of. When the house was done she would place it on the mantle from the middle of December until New Year’s Eve when we got to take turns pulling candy off the house.

It was always incredible. I remember being totally amazed year after year at the different color arrangements and candy themes. She could do anything. So I knew I could do anything too.

I remember my Mother going into the elementary school one day to complain because my older brother’s teacher scolded him for coloring outside the lines of a silly little Xeroxed drawing of a pumpkin. She wasn’t going to let anyone stunt the artistic growth of her children. My Mother made sure we knew we were loved. I love my Mother.

2 Brave–my mother 4" x 6"

3 MY FATHER

My Father is intelligent, good looking and everyone loves him.

When my siblings and I were younger, nearly every night our father would come into our bedrooms to sing us goodnight songs. He would bring in his guitar and we would shout out requests such as Lemon Tree, Very Pretty, Puff the Magic Dragon, Scarlet Ribbons, or Goober Peas. I have always had a good relationship with my Father.

Every Saturday one of us would go on a “special time.” “Special time,” that’s what he called it. You could choose whatever you wanted to do on your special time. You could go to a movie, eat pizza, go miniature golfing and you could even stop at the Seven Eleven to buy one treat if you wanted.

Passion, passion is something my Father considers essential in life. Every endeavor I’ve pursued my Father encouraged passion. He helped me believe that if I really wanted to, and if I had enough desire, I could do anything. Although my Father has never been much of an art connoisseur, he has always showed interest in my art. He appreciates my talents and is overjoyed with the success my art has brought in connection with my healing process. Whenever I feel a lack of confidence about my art, I always remember my Father’s words about passion. “Passion can take you anywhere.” My Father made sure we knew we were loved. I love my Father.

4 Brave–my father 5" x 5"

5 MY HUSBAND

My Husband is smart, attractive and makes me laugh.

My Husband has played a significant role in my recovery. Born into a family of artists, he has always appreciated the arts. Where previous boyfriends couldn’t understand the importance of art in my life, he has been constantly captivated with everything I do. He gives me confidence and never agrees with me when I think something I have made is ugly or stupid. He listens and supports me. He never shouts and is always respectful. He never judges me and makes me excited to be alive. He has given me something no other man could have ever given. I never knew love could be so sweet. My Husband makes sure I know I am loved. I love my Husband.

6 Marriage Quilt (detail) 4' x 4'

7 PURE

My mother always told me that the name Kathryn actually means pure. I took comfort in the thought of my name meaning something so wonderful even if sometimes I didn’t feel very pure at all. I know it wasn’t my fault that I was dirty. Someone else did it.

When I was four years old I was sexually abused by our neighbor. He was our babysitter and we knew his family quite well. I don’t remember his last name, his first name was Todd. I asked my mother once what his last name was and she told me but maybe it’s a good thing, that I forgot. But I know she knows.

I know it happened a lot. I don’t know how many times, but I know it happened a lot. However there is one night that sticks out in my mind more than all the others. It was the night I found the courage to tell John. John is my older brother and we shared a room together. Todd would send us to bed real early so John and I would always laugh and talk until we fell asleep. But we couldn’t be too noisy or Todd would make me come upstairs. At the time I thought what happened to me was a punishment for talking too loud when I was supposed to be asleep. We would be laughing and then he would say, “You guys better be quiet or Kathryn has to come upstairs.” I remember saying, “Shh John don’t laugh,” but how was he supposed to know what it really meant for me to go upstairs?

Then, whether we were quiet or not, he would come down and tell me I had to come upstairs. He would follow behind me, walking up the stairs. I don’t remember much about that house, but I remember those stairs: they were rust colored and covered with plastic. I can remember the way the plastic felt under my bare feet. At the top of the stairs we would turn right and walk down the hall into my parents’ bedroom. He would lead me over to the right side of the bed, lie down, and then ask me to take off my underpants. But they weren’t just underpants because I still wet the bed and had to wear plastic underpants over my real ones. I can remember the crinkling sound of the plastic as I took them off. Then he would pull me into bed with him and set me on top of his body. He always took his shirt off. Then I would just lay there and look at the wall or out the window as he molested my little body.

I can’t remember all the details but I’m glad about that and I don’t want to write down the ones that I do remember. When he was finished I would put my real underpants back on with the plastic ones on the outside and then he would tell me to go to bed and that if I told my parents, he would kill them. I sat on the stairs crying, not wanting to go downstairs until I had stopped. I can see my tiny body sitting there dressed in a pink nightgown with a lace trim around the sleeves and neck line, my knees tucked up, just crying. I don’t know if John heard me or not, but for some reason he came upstairs. He came up and asked me what was wrong. I told him. I told him what Todd really did to me when he’d make me go upstairs. I remember making hand gestures so John would understand. I remember John putting his arm around me and walking me downstairs back to our bedroom. Our bedroom had all different colors of carpet cut into little squares. I think my bed was yellow.

8 Brave–pure 8" x 10"

9 THE BEST ONE

My mother told me that out of all of her children I was the best one at art. I believed her.

10 Brave–the best one 8" x 9"

11 MY BIGGEST FEAR

When I try to remember things about my childhood, I rarely remember actual events, instead I remember thinking things. I thought about things all day long. I thought about being kidnapped on my way home from school. I remember being nervous to raise my hand in class because then someone might come over and touch my arm-pit. I thought about how scary things were. I wasn’t afraid of roller coasters or jumping off the high dive. I was only afraid of being kidnapped and murdered, because you never know when someone will attack you, and you need to be prepared. Thinking this way didn’t seem odd to me because most kids seemed to be afraid, so it didn’t seem weird, just scary.

There were a million things to be afraid of: I was afraid of men hiding in the closet waiting until I fell asleep so they could sneak out and stab me. I panicked and cried when my mother was late picking me up after school. I had scary dreams about the neighborhood men wanting to kidnap me and touch my breasts. A friend once asked me what my biggest fear was; I thought that was a stupid question…“To be raped and murdered, of course.”

12 Brave–my biggest fear 8" x 10"

13 ESCAPE PLANS

I created elaborate escape plans in case a real murderer happened to come into my bedroom. There was a plan for the door and a plan for the window and a plan for if I fell asleep.

“Sharp Knife Blanket” was an imaginary plan. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep at all I would think up different inventions that might protect me. “Sharp knife blanket” was a blanket made from all different kinds of knives. The inside was soft and very comfortable but on the other side all the knives would stick up so if anyone tried to grab me they would get stabbed. Of course, if for some reason he succeeded in getting the blanket off then I would have a secret latch that I could pull and it would allow me to slide down through my bed to a tunnel that was underneath my bed. There was a trap door that would close behind me so he couldn’t follow me. Or at least it would stall him long enough so that I could crawl through the tunnel and reach the phone that I’d placed at the end. The phone was important because the tunnel ran into the Lovell’s house and I didn’t know them very well and maybe they would be mad that I had dug a tunnel to their house.

14 Brave–escape plans 8" x 9"

15 LITTLE BLUE STUD

There were times when my mother would approach me, asking if I wanted to talk about the things that had happened to me when I was four years old. But I was embarrassed and besides, nothing was wrong. Kids are always scared. They do funny things. I was a funny kid who did funny things. Like the time I stayed up all night piercing my left ear with an old earring. It was a little blue square stud. I had no idea where it had come from. I just pushed it little by little until it went all the way through. I knew I would get into trouble when my mother saw what I had done, but I also knew that if I took it out after all that hard work it would close up and I wouldn’t have a pierced ear. I didn’t need to talk about anything because there really wasn’t anything to talk about. It was life and life was scary. That’s just the way things were.

16 Brave–little blue stud 6" x 7"

17 THE SCREWDRIVER INCIDENT

“What the crap are you doing? I’m telling mom.”

I should have locked the door. I was caught. But what was I doing in the first place? Did I really believe that the deeper the fingernail marks, the more my sister would be punished? Did I really want her to get into more trouble? Did I really want her to get into trouble at all? It’s funny, here it is thirteen years later and I can’t recall what we were fighting about. In fact, I don’t even remember her pinching my hand. All I can remember is the look on my sister’s face when she opened the bathroom door to find me digging into my pinch wound with a flat-headed screwdriver.

When I try to remember hurting myself for the first time, the screwdriver incident is my first recollection.

18 Brave–the screwdriver incident 8" x 9"

19 THE MOST OUTSTANDING ARTIST

It was in high school that my artwork really started to change. Instead of feeling free to make whatever I wanted, I felt pressure to create things realistically. It was as if I wanted to prove that there was something I was better at than anyone else. My mother had told me that I was good, but I was starting to have doubts. I needed to make things that my friends and teachers liked. They didn’t really like my abstract paintings from middle school, so I spent the next three years creating tightly rendered figure drawings of different pop stars or pirates. That impressed my teachers. Drawing realistic pop stars made me feel good because when you draw realistically people praise you and tell you that you’re amazing. They ask you questions like, “How long did that take you?” I was getting a lot of attention. I liked attention.

My senior year I was awarded the Most Outstanding Artist at Hillcrest High School. I even got a plaque with my name printed below the words, “MOST OUTSTANDING ARTIST.” I was right. If you draw realistically people will like you.

20 Brave–the most outstanding artist 5" x 5"

21 FAKE BRUISES

I can make fake bruises better than anyone. Just give me a red scripture pencil and a blue one and in five minutes I’ll have a very realistic looking bruise anywhere on my entire body.

22 Brave–fake bruises 8" x 9"

23 BODY FAT

It was in high school that I became obsessed with my body. I was in health class being tested for body fat percentage. I sat in the chair waiting, hoping, and praying that my results would match up to the other girls. The teacher looked up at me, back down at the calculated figures and back up at me again. “Do you exercise at all?” “No not really,” I said. Twenty three!!! Twenty three percent body fat. That’s what the stupid test said. How in the world could it be? I thought I looked just as small as the other girls. But if the test says it, then it must be true. I must be FAT!!!! But thankfully enough it was that same health class that taught me how to starve myself, or binge and purge as my teacher called it. I knew that we were learning about it so we wouldn’t do it but I thought it was a great idea. So I started right away.

I kept a little journal and wrote down everything I ate, eating less and less every day. When I failed, I would curse myself for being so weak then write down words of encouragement to get myself prepared for the next day. It became my new passion. I thought about it every second of the day. Even when I would wake up with excruciating hunger pains it still didn’t seem dangerous, it just seemed like I was working hard at what I needed to do. My parents later learned of my obsession and tried desperately to help. My mom made breakfast every morning to make sure I had something to eat. I would take one bite and then run downstairs with it pretending to be in a frantic hurry; after about fifteen minutes, I would flush it all down the toilet, bring my bowl up and tell my mother just how delicious it was. It kills me now to think how desensitized I was to her feelings.

She gave me so much love, but it was as if I was in some sort of thick fog and couldn’t see or make out what was really happening. I was selfish. I remember one day looking in the mirror after a shower and for a split second seeing how emaciated my body had really become. But as fast as I saw it, it went away.

24 You Cannot Feel Your Limbs 4' x 4'

25 CERAMICS

I had a ceramic class my senior year. My teacher’s name was Ms. Diaz. She loved me and I had become one of her favorites. She was a hippie woman and always took a liking to the talented. She even had me teach one of her classes. I could make realistic faces better than she could, so she asked me if I would teach the next class. She liked me so much that she trusted me with the keys to the hallway bathroom; I don’t know why they kept it locked. No one was ever allowed to take the keys. This was a momentous situation. I didn’t really need to go to the bathroom but I loved having those keys. I took the keys and went down the hall and into the secluded restroom. I have no idea how the idea came to me, whether I had planned it all along or if something in the bathroom triggered what I did next. But for some reason I spent the next 45 minutes sitting on the floor banging my head with something hard; I can’t remember what it was but I know it was hard and metal. I remember planning out everything I would say: What I would say if someone came in, if they never came in, and what I would tell Ms. Diaz. The bump had to be big so that it would be easy to explain my long absence from class. It hurt to do it but what could I do? I had been gone for so long. There would have to be an explanation. No one ever came; I knew class would be getting over soon and then I’d be caught for sure. I got up and slowly walked back to class. “Kathy, where have you been?” “I’m sorry Ms. Diaz, I fainted in the bathroom and hit my head on the floor, and I think I’ve got a pretty big bump.” “Oh, wow. That’s a shiner; we better get you home. I bet you have a concussion.”

26 Brave–ceramics 5" x 7"

27 JOLLY RANCHER DIET

In college I was away from home and totally unsupervised. My parents tried to get me help for the eating problems. I went to a few doctors and they gave me some pills and a little advice. And I guess it worked a little bit because I didn’t starve myself anymore. Instead I would devise different diets for myself. One I remember was the jolly rancher diet. You could buy them really cheap at the dollar store and they tasted delicious. The jolly rancher diet was brilliant. My mother told me a story when I was little about a science experiment they did in her fifth grade class. They separated two mice into different cages. One mouse was fed nutritious foods like vegetables and grains while the other mouse was served a strict candy diet. “Do you know what happened to the mice?” my mother would ask. “The healthy mouse turned nice and round with pink rosy cheeks and the other mouse shriveled up and started to die.” It seems so twisted now, but in my mind it seemed logical. “I don’t want to become round and rosy, I want to shrivel.”

28 Brave–jolly rancher diet 8" x 9"

29 ATTENTION

In college, I started telling close friends or boyfriends about the sexual abuse, hoping to gain some attention or sympathy from the whole ordeal. I often wondered why I was acting that way, why I couldn’t just laugh and have normal relationships, why having a serious conversation meant having to talk about being abused. I felt guilty for pretending to be so upset about things just to get attention.

30 Brave–attention 8" x 10"

31 COLLEGE

Art in college was a whole new experience. I remember sitting in my drawing class thinking, “Why didn’t anyone teach me this before?” It was wonderful. I enrolled in several life drawing courses and worked obsessively to master the figure. When people asked me who my favorite artist was, I would usually answer, Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci. I was deeply intrigued by the work of the contemporary figure painter Jenny Saville, but not many people outside the art scene knew this name so the Michelangelo and Da Vinci answers were quick fixes for avoiding long unwanted conversations. Most people would just nod and give a look of approval.

Painting the figure was mesmerizing; I would spend hours painting and repainting, layering glaze upon glaze. However, I was rarely satisfied and I never knew when to stop. I would only stop if something needed to be turned in to a professor on time or if I was under pressure to get some slides taken for an application deadline. It was frustrating to feel so fickle about my work.

Although I often had doubts about my own goals, I received quite a lot of acclaim at the university for my rendering skills. This encouragement gave me the impression that intense, realistic painting was still what I did best. So I kept doing it. As I look back now it is easy to see why my work was so controlled and tight. My world was confusing and scary and I needed reassurance and control over something.

32 Brave–college 7" x 7"

33 PLAYING THE VICTIM

When I was nineteen, I believed playing the victim would encourage people to dedicate their whole lives to my care. I honestly believed that I was just putting on a good show in order to establish some kind of relationship. Sometimes my performances worked and I would find myself in an extremely suffocating relationship with someone that didn’t really care for me but just wanted to take care of me. When I really wanted it to work, when I really wanted undying dedication from the man of my dreams, playing the victim never worked, instead he would just stop coming over. I was confused about why my performances didn’t work with everyone. When I really wanted the attention, I would make mistakes and drive people away but when I was merely looking for a rebound man or a cure for summer boredom my dramatic performances were flawless and effective.

When I was nineteen my boyfriend of the time asked me, “How long are you going to be sad?” This question startled me. I had never thought about how long I was going to be sad. But it didn’t really matter because I wasn’t sad. I was just acting sad to get his attention. If I wanted to I could stop acting sad. But I didn’t want to because I needed attention and the best way to get it was to be sad, needy and depressed. Everyone thought the things I did were because of my abuse and sadness (because that’s what I told them) but really they were because I just wanted them to think those things so they would like me and want to devote their lives to me, because everyone would want to take care of someone. Everyone but me, I didn’t want to take care of anybody, I only wanted someone to take care of me.

During those years my best solution was to find someone who was willing to play the role of devoted care-taker. I thought the best way to do that was by playing the victim and demanding love. However I never went to my parents for love, or to doctors or counselors or anyone that could really do anything about it. Looking back I suppose the reason I never sought help from reliable sources was because if I did, then I would have to change. And at the time, I was under the impression that I wasn’t actually upset about anything, I was just pretending. In fact, the time my best friend told my parents that I had cut myself I was so mad at her I thought I would never speak to her again. It was so difficult to see that she was genuinely concerned for me. In my eyes she was simply messing up my plans.

34 Brave–playing the victim 8" x 8"

35 CUTTING

I was nineteen the first time I used a razor blade to cut myself. My mother was in Italy with my Grandmother for a few weeks and my father was out of town on business. I think he was in Colorado. I was all alone at my parents’ house. I started feeling really weird. I felt like my insides were shaking. I remember going to the south east corner of the family room and sitting down on the floor under the window that the birds always flew into. I didn’t know why but I needed to rock back and forth. I’d seen people do this on TV. Crazy people do it. But the rocking slowed the shaking so I kept doing it. But then I couldn’t stop and it seemed like the shaking was getting faster but I couldn’t rock any faster. I felt small and dark and scared. Then, I remembered an R-rated movie I had watched at my friend’s house I think it was called “Heat.” Al Pachino and Robert DeNiro were the main actors. I remember in the movie Al Pachino’s step-daughter cut her arms and legs in the bathtub. She was trying to kill herself. Al Pachino found her in the tub at his apartment and saved her life. I remember thinking why didn’t she cut her wrists? But then I learned that there are certain arteries in your arm and leg that if cut, you could bleed to death.

Suddenly I felt so calm. I stopped shaking. Yes, this is what I could do; I could cut myself. So I went downstairs into the art room where my mother keeps all the craft supplies and found a razor blade in the top drawer. I knew right where they were because I’d spent a lot of time in that room. I then went upstairs and back into the kitchen. I got out a large bowl and filled it with warm water. Then I found some old towels from under the sink in the laundry room. These were rags used for washing the cars and shining shoes so I knew they would be okay to use. After that I opened the freezer and pulled out a small jar of frozen apricot jam. My mother makes the best homemade jam. I knew it was probably going to hurt so I used the jam to numb the inside of my left forearm.

I chose my forearm because that’s where the girl in the movie had cut herself. It was strange but I remember thinking that the forearm was a really good place for cutting because the wrist would probably hurt worse and you wouldn’t be able to cut as deep. I held the frozen jar on my arm until I couldn’t feel my own pinch and then I started to cut. I made one long horizontal cut and watched as little beads of blood came popping out all along the line. I thought it was kind of a nice design. I tried another spot and did the same thing. This didn’t seem good enough, so I cut over one of the lines again and watched the line of dots turn into a straight thin line. It still didn’t hurt. I could feel the numbing going away but it still didn’t hurt. I put my arm into the bowl of warm water because I learned on the movie that warm water makes the blood flow faster. I watched as the blood really did flow so quickly through the water. But then I felt it sting and I could tell that my arm wasn’t cold any more. I wanted to cut more but it hurt too much to keep my arm in the water, so I pulled it out, dried it off with one of the old towels and got down a new jar of apricot jam. I placed the frozen jar right on top of the cuts I had made. The blood made my arm stick to the jar. But I just left it there. After it felt numb again, I peeled the jar off and decided to keep cutting the same two places over and over again until suddenly the little thread like fibers that seemed to be holding my skin together flayed open. I could see the inside of my arm. I felt different, I felt almost like I was waking up from something, like when you’ve been inside all day and then you go outside and it’s too bright so that you have to squint your eyes.

Suddenly I thought about what I had done. I looked at my arm and all the blood and it scared me. The thought of my mother came to me and I felt sorry and upset at what I had just done. I felt selfish for not thinking about how much it would hurt her if I had cut too deep and accidentally killed myself. I quickly pressed one of the towels up against the wounds and tried to stop the bleeding. It wouldn’t stop. I got other towels and used them. Finally I got it to slow down. I couldn’t find any bandages big enough so I found some yarn and tied a small towel

36 around my arm. Then I cleaned everything up. No one had come home yet and I knew that no one would be home for a while. I needed to get out of the house. I was feeling better, so I put on a clean long sleeved shirt and decided to go shopping. I drove to a thrift store on ninth and ninth in Salt Lake and bought some new baby blue corduroy overalls. I thought they would be cool but I only wore them once. It was hard to try clothes on with the towel around my arm. I knew I should have got stitches but it wasn’t possible because I wasn’t going to tell anyone about this so I was just going to have to take care of it on my own. Besides it would scab and then I could pick it.

Cutting 20" x 9"

The second time I cut myself I was living in Logan and going to Utah State University. I was in my apartment all alone and suddenly felt the urge. I didn’t want to kill myself I just wanted to cut. So I went to the freezer to find something to numb my arm with. There were no frozen jars of home made jam, just frozen vegetables and ice. The frozen vegetables thawed way too fast so I couldn’t use those. Ice isn’t as handy as you would think for numbing something. It takes a long time because it melts faster when you put it against your skin. So you always have to get a new cube out of the freezer. I used ice. I had cut in a new place this time. I still had scabs from the previous cuts but those were for picking, not cutting. This time it felt a little euphoric. I liked watching the skin separate slowly. After a while the euphoria wore off and I realized this time I had maybe gone too far. If this was only my second time and I wanted to keep doing this then I should not have cut so deeply. I was scared. I ran up to the university to see my therapist Bonita, but she wasn’t there so I went to my art history class. During the lecture I began fiddling with the wound through my sweater. I had only been playing with it for about five minutes when suddenly the cut pulled open again. It started bleeding profusely through the weave of my sweater. I got up and left. I had a big spot of blood on my sweater but no one could really see it because it was a navy blue sweater so you couldn’t tell. I went to the bathroom and put some paper towels on my arm until it stopped bleeding. Then I walked back to class. But I was kind of sad it wasn’t bleeding anymore. So I started fiddling with it again. It didn’t bleed as much the second time.

37 I STOPPED

It’s funny how when you are in a cloud like that you don’t realize that in reality you are pushing everyone away. Until that time the thought had never occurred to me that people might not enjoy being around someone so needy or depressed. I don’t remember consciously coming to the realization that my methods for gaining acceptance and love were in fact distorted and extremely ineffective, but I do remember becoming aware of the declining amount of secure relationships I had in my life. I remember suddenly realizing nobody wants to be around someone with problems. No one wants to date and marry someone with problems. If I really wanted someone to love me I was going to have to learn to stop being afraid. I was going to have to stop all this nonsense. I stopped cutting. I stopped everything.

I decided I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. I lied about my scars and I didn’t want my friends to know the way I felt. I didn’t want anyone to know, so I kept it all in. But I was confused about something: if it had all been for attention, if it was all something I had been doing as an act in order to get attention, why did I still want to hurt myself? Why was I still feeling like a victim? Why would I sneak into the bathroom all by myself, freeze my arm with a frozen bottle of apricot jam and then slice through the layers of my arm over and over again in the same place? Why did I sit on the floor and bang my head against the wall and then lie about my bruises and bumps? Why would I write fat, fat all over my body with a magic marker and then make sure my clothes covered up the words. Was I really hurting? I started noticing things. I started noticing that not everyone was afraid at night. Not everyone was horrified to lift their arm up in school because it felt scary. Not everyone stayed up all night protecting themselves. I was scared. I really was scared.

38 Brave–i stopped 5" x 6"

39 FLESH LANDSCAPES

After I graduated from college I moved back home to my parents and spent the next year preparing to apply for graduate school. My mother has an art studio in the basement and said she wasn’t going to teach art classes that year so I could use the studio to prepare. She has always loved my art. No matter what I make she loves it.

For my application portfolio I made a series of paintings entitled “flesh landscapes.” The paintings were actually zoomed in portions of the figure, which when turned in the right direction emulated images of vast landscapes. As I look back now it is easy to see the symbolism. I was creating tightly rendered images, very controlled and realistic. But this time I was cropping the bodies into landscapes. Into something that looked like a body but didn’t function like one and didn’t feel like one. It was exactly how I felt. I was a mind and a body, but they were not connected. I often felt like I was in a movie sort of looking down at the things my body did. But it wasn’t really my body it was just a body, just a vast landscape of flesh.

It was an amazingly difficult decision where to go for graduate school. It was hard to think straight with all the anxiety I was feeling. I felt nervous to move away to another state all by myself. I decided to stay in Utah so I could be close to my family.

I needed to do something. I couldn’t live this life anymore. I was going to start a new phase of life and I didn’t want to enter graduate school in such a stressful state. I didn’t want to be scared anymore. Something needed to happen.

But then something did happen. Just ten days before I started my first year of graduate school I was lying in my bed trying desperately to fall asleep. I felt stressed and nervous. I felt like everything was wrong. I felt hopeless. I can’t quite remember how it started but suddenly I started punching myself in the head, screaming, swearing, and shouting out brutal ways in which I wanted to hurt myself. I felt like I was falling down something. I couldn’t breathe, my hands and feet felt like they were shaking violently. My lips were numb and my body felt incredibly heavy. I was scared. I thought I was going to die. I started screaming for help. My dad, my mom and my sister Becky all came into my room. I don’t remember too much but I know I was lying on a hospital table for a long time before I understood that I wasn’t going to die.

40 Flesh Landscape 5" x 6"

41 DR. ELLIS

It was my second semester and I was living in a little white house with my three best friends, Millie, Shelby and Ann Dee. They had all gone to their family’s houses for Sunday dinner but I didn’t feel like going to my family’s house. I wasn’t feeling very well, I wasn’t feeling very well at all. I was feeling like I wanted to cut myself. It had been six years since the last time I had cut myself. There had always been times when I felt tempted to cut but this time it was too strong. I hadn’t felt like this in a very long time. I knew where Millie kept her razor knife kit and it would be easy to access, everyone was gone, it was the perfect time. So I got out the ice, but this time I was going to cut my right arm. It would be silly to cut the same arm after all that plastic surgery to make the old scars look small. I did it. It was harder to cut with my left hand than my right so it wasn’t nearly as deep as the last time. But it felt good. I felt a little sad and a little guilty but it seemed worth it. I sat on the kitchen floor with blood all over myself. I started to cry and thought that maybe I should call one of my roommates. I called them, but no one answered. So I cleaned up.

When Millie came home I told her what I did. I felt guilty and knew I should tell someone. I was reluctant to call my mom and dad because I didn’t want them to worry. So I told Millie. Millie is really good at making you feel better. She is also very good at bandaging things.

I didn’t tell my parents but somehow they knew. The very next day my mother called me and said she and my dad had been talking and they felt like it might be a good idea for me to go and see Dr. Ellis, a friend of theirs. They were still worried about the attack I had last summer and thought maybe I needed some help. I decided not to tell her right then about the cutting but I agreed to go to the appointment. I told her as soon as we got to the appointment. She said she knew something was wrong, somehow they knew.

I began to see Dr. Ellis on a regular basis but cutting was still tempting and was still happening from time to time.

Sometimes when I would cut myself I would squeeze out as much blood as I could and then use the blood to finger paint with. I would always make sure that the razors were sanitary and that I hadn’t been using them for other things, because I didn’t want to get dirty paint pigments into my skin because then I would probably die and I didn’t want to die.

I remember one particular evening after I had cut myself I was in charge of a cookie decorating activity that night for some of the girls from my church. It was about six o’clock and the party started at seven. I dreaded the idea of giddy women sitting around my kitchen table decorating Christmas cookies for the less active church goers. So I tried to call it off, but one of the girls said she would bring all the supplies and I wouldn’t have to do anything but be home. So they came over and I decorated cookies in my long sleeve sweatshirt and pretended to be sick because that’s what I told them.

42 Fingerpainting 10" x 12"

43 DREAMS

I can’t count the number of dreams I’ve had where I was pulling off, picking or digging out huge blemishes from my face and body.

I remember one dream where I was slowly pulling out long fat worms from underneath my skin.

Another one I saw a bump on my foot and when I pushed it I realized it was a worm. When I pulled it out I realized that there was another one right behind it. I kept pulling the worms out one after the other until my foot started caving in because the whole thing was full of worms.

Another where I was casually picking my face and the skin started rolling off my face while I tried frantically to patch it back up.

One of my more uncomfortable or disturbing dreams is one where a snake crawled up my body and started living in my knee and it was going to take long hours in the bathroom to pull him out again.

I wasn’t always alone in my dreams. Almost always someone dear to me would die or experience some sort of horrific accident. Even though they were only dreams I can clearly recall the dread and hopelessness I felt in those moments.

Of course there had always been the dreams about him. He is the man who sat at the edge of my bed with his shirt off just watching me. I never could see his face only his body. Sometimes I thought I felt him touching my feet.

44 Brave–dreams 8" x 10"

45 A NIGHTLY RITUAL

Going to bed had become a nightly ritual. The first thing I needed to do was to make sure the spare key was well hidden. My roommates had decided the best place to keep the key was on the little ledge at the top of the door but they always left the key sticking out a little so it would be easy to feel where it was in the dark. If it were up to me there would be no spare key. Because murderers know people use spare keys so they always look for them. But my roommates stayed out late and always forgot their keys, so we had to have a spare key. After the key was hidden, then I would secure the house. I locked all the doors first and made sure the dead bolt was turned. The back door didn’t have a dead bolt and it was really old so if a murderer wanted to he could probably just take it off. Then I would check all the windows and make sure they were properly locked. However murderers know about locks and know how to get around them. So really the only reason to lock the door was to stall them a little bit so I had more time to escape. After everything was locked I needed to barricade my room. Since it was an old house there wasn’t a lock on my bedroom door. This meant I had to move almost everything in my room in front of the door. I couldn’t just put a chair because murderers know about that too.

I began to realize that no matter the escape plan, imaginary or real, I would never feel secure. When I went to bed I would hold the phone in my hand and keep my finger on the number one because I had already dialed the nine and the first number one. That way if the murderer grabbed me I could at least have time to press one number and maybe the police would arrive before he killed me. Or maybe he would see that I had already called the cops and he would be scared and run away. But even when I held the phone in my hand I still didn’t feel safe. I tried everything. I put bottles and clanking things in the window sill so if anyone tried to climb through it I would have a little bit of a warning. I propped things up against the door to create barricades so no one could get in. One time my roommate tried to get in my room to tell me something and I was very embarrassed when she realized I had created a barricade.

46 9–1– 5" x 6"

47 ART THERAPY

Seeing Dr. Ellis was definitely helping. I was getting excited about overcoming the cutting and was interested to incorporate some of the healing experience into my art. Dr. Ellis agreed that it would be a wonderful way to start some communication. My roommates were very supportive and for my birthday gave me a gift certificate to Lowe’s hardware store. I bought six boxes of razor blades, each one containing one hundred blades. It was exciting to try to use the blades in my art and it made me feel stronger to use them in art instead of on my arms or legs. The art wasn’t so good but the process was very therapeutic.

48 4 Years Old (detail) 3' x 4'

49 PICKING

I need to be in control. I need to do things. I need to do things that have instant gratification. If I can pick something then I feel calm and in control. I have always been an obsessive picker. Sometimes I would rub oil and dirt into my skin, hoping some sort of infectious scab would develop and then I could pick it. Picking was an enormous temptation. I remember being in the fifth grade and being completely obsessed with my chicken pocks. “They’ll scar, I promise you they’ll scar,” my mother pleaded with me not to pick them. But it was impossible, I couldn’t resist. It was all I could think about. I was sitting in my desk at school when I finally noticed what I had done; it was too late: the pock scab that had always been the hardest to resist, the one that lay not quite in the center of my forehead, was now at the tip of my fingers. “Oh no,” I thought, “my mother will definitely notice.” I remember trying to glue it back on and being so nervous when it wouldn’t stay put. But I wasn’t nervous about having a scar, I was just nervous because I knew I wasn’t supposed to pick it.

There was something so wonderful about picking, so mesmerizing; it made me feel so calm like everything just sat still. Like time had stopped. I loved picking. I remember spending hours in the bathroom peeling the skin off bad sunburns, or wishing that I would get a gigantic ingrown hair somewhere that was easy to pick, like my leg. The thought of it was almost euphoric.

50 Brave–picking 10" x 8"

51 LITTLE JOURNALS

As I continued therapy I started to recognize my need for cathartic activities. I knew that picking could at times get out of hand and in fact become harmful. Plus I always felt guilty after because my face would often look as if someone had just poured acid on it. I knew I needed to find another way to satisfy this urge.

I decided to keep small journals with me throughout the day. Whenever I felt restless or tempted to harm myself I would pull out one of these journals and draw whatever I wanted. I could draw whatever I wanted because no one was going to see it. And no one was going to ask me questions about it.

Using red markers, black pens and a white paint pen I spent countless hours creating small drawings of guns, beds and underpants or telephones with the numbers 911 highlighted. All the images seem to clump together into blob like shapes and figures. I really like some of those drawings but I bet if anyone else ever looked at them they probably wouldn’t be able to tell what was going on, but I could. It was just what I needed.

52 Little Journals

53 A SLIGHT SET BACK

With my little journals near me, I was doing pretty well for a while. I was doing well until three weeks after my twenty sixth birthday. I was in the studio painting when the guy I was dating at the time called and told me he decided that we weren’t good for each other because he was on anxiety medicine too and two people on anxiety medicine shouldn’t date each other and he needed to go back to his old girlfriend because she was stable, and he needed someone more stable to help him be more stable. I was mad. Not so much because I loved him or was sad that he wasn’t going to be around, but because he said I was unstable. He said that he needed some one more stable and that hurt. I was trying hard to be stable and thought I was doing a good job. I was so angry, I felt disconnected and anxious. I started to cry. I had just been rejected for something that I was trying desperately to fix. I kept crying for a long time then suddenly I stopped. Suddenly I remembered that I had an entire supply of razor blades right in front of me. Six hundred of them and they were new and sanitary. If I wanted to, I could cut. I knew they were for making art, I knew it was therapeutic to surround myself with razor blades and be able to stand firm. But this time I couldn’t resist. I did it.

Doctor Ellis said it was like putting an alcoholic in a room full of their favorite drink. I saw his point. Then he asked me something I will never forget. He asked me if I thought I could break up with my cutting. At first I didn’t get what he was trying to say. But then it was easy to understand. I was dating my cutting. I was very dedicated to the relationship. Cutting was always there and it never let me down. It never left; it never called and told me I wasn’t stable. It was just always there when I needed it.

Dr. Ellis has a really good way of putting things. I had never thought of my cutting as something I depended on. I really did love my cutting. I knew it was wrong but I loved it. And now Dr. Ellis wanted to know if I could ever break up with it. Suddenly it all seemed so clear. I was in a very unhealthy relationship. It really was like a bad boyfriend who is very attractive and always around but treats you like crap. I needed to get out before it destroyed me. So I decided I was going to have to let go. I was going to let go of all of it, not just the actual but the abstract as well. I was trying to use my art to express emotions but I was just enhancing the problem by surrounding myself with temptation. I needed to rid myself of my knives. I needed to find a new way to use my art, a way that wouldn’t be destructive to my psyche or my body.

54 Brave–a slight setback 7" x 7"

55 BAD CONNECTION

Once I dated someone who thought I was unstable, once I dated someone who thought my art was weird and once I dated someone who made me feel nervous and afraid to kiss. I made a painting once about someone I was dating. I used an old self portrait for my face and then down in the lower corner I painted a face of the man I was dating. I painted a red line that connected us and then wrapped the line all around the image of my face. I thought it meant that we had a good connection but then a ceramic student who saw the piece said that in Indian cultures they draw red and blue lines to connected images and a blue line means a good connection but a red line means a bad connection.

56 Bad Connection 16" x 22"

57 WOMB

I’m not sure why but there was a time when I liked to draw fetuses. I would do drawing after drawing of wombs and mangled fetuses. On one particular painting I painted two wombs above a dozen small images of razor blades and underpants and underpants that looked like razor blades. But all those images are very hazy now because I painted a white veil over them and pretty pink edges and clouds.

58 Womb 2' x 3 1/2'

59 CANDY

On some of my paintings you can see images of candy or ice cream but most people don’t notice that those images are in the back of the paintings floating next to images of knives and guns and are covered up with see through walls. Most people think the candy symbolizes happiness but really I made pictures of candy because some times He would give me candy if I did what he told me.

60 Color-Aid (detail) 5' x 4'

61 WHAT’S ON THE MENU TODAY

Once I wrote a song called what’s on the menu today. I had never really written a song before, besides the one I wrote in middle school about a man who didn’t have any shoes. But one day I wrote a song. I wrote a song and these are the words.

Cut, cut, cut what’s on the menu today?

Arms and legs or hips and thighs?

It’s almost time it’s creeping up.

So, pick, pick, pick a tool

And have, have, have some fun.

It’s almost time it’s creeping up.

You’re all alone and on the stage

You see everything.

It is only me.

So drive, drive, drive, drive around

And turn, turn, turn it up.

It’s almost time it’s creeping up.

62 What’s On The Menu Today 18" x 18"

63 STEVE

I decided it would be easier to walk away from cutting if I could make it seem more tangible, so I gave my cutting a name. Steve. I find it so interesting that, that one little question Dr. Ellis asked me (could I break up with the cutting?) made me finally realize that this long term relationship with Steve was not to my advantage. You only break up with someone because they’re treating you bad or you don’t love them anymore. So when he asked me if I could break up, it suddenly made so much sense. Steve was a bad boyfriend who made me feel good for only brief moments of time and I was addicted to him. So Dr. Ellis and I made a deal, when I was ready to break up with Steve, I would bring all my knives, razor blades and pieces of glass to his office and say goodbye.

By my next appointment I felt ready. I went to the studio and gathered every single thing I could have used as a cutting tool. When I put everything together it filled one small garbage pail and a small cardboard box. I wrapped everything in towels so nothing could cut through the bags, but really it was because I didn’t want to look at them, because if I looked at them then I wouldn’t want to give them away. It’s hard to break up with someone you are still attracted to.

64 Type Rope Walking 9' x 12'

65 SATISFYING THE URGE

I decided it was time to let myself make the paintings or drawings that I really wanted to make. I understood that other people might look at these paintings and have questions as to what I was creating but I had to do it. I would paint whatever I wanted. And it didn’t have to be realistic and it didn’t have to be a person and it wouldn’t involve knives or razor blades. I knew I was sick of drawing and painting things realistically and I knew I wasn’t going to use razor blades or anything that might give me the urge to cut. I needed to shift something. I needed to find a way to satisfy the urge to hurt myself, something that would calm me down and make me feel in control but wouldn’t be harmful.

I went to the store and bought two large pieces of drawing paper. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to start with but I wanted to make something that referenced my abuse. I felt weird inside and I just wanted to make something and see if it could help me understand more about myself. I found some pictures of myself when I was four years old and I started drawing them on the large pieces of paper. I immediately became frustrated. It wasn’t right. Yes it looked like a little girl and yes it looked like me as a little girl, but it wasn’t right. Why was I still drawing like this, why couldn’t I break out of the shell of realism? I went to the shelf and pulled down an old tub of red acrylic paint. I thinned the paint down into a soup like consistency and then began dripping dots of red all over the drawings of the little girl. It felt good. It looked like blood. I liked painting blood. There was something cathartic about dripping the red paint onto white paper. The paper which before was so white had been instantly stained. After I had covered large portions of the drawings I still didn’t feel satisfied. So I folded the drawings in half and started to tear them into four different drawings, to see if I would like that. But I didn’t, so then I tore them in half again. I tore them up until I had a pile of little squares and rectangles. I liked it better that way. It felt good to do whatever I wanted. I liked not worrying about other people seeing what I had made. It felt good. I decided to start a whole new series surrounding my abuse.

66 Brave–satisfying the urge 7" x 9"

67 BLOODY SNOWFLAKE

I used Band-Aids to make designs on ply wood. Sometimes I would paint the backs of the band- aids so they looked like they had already been used. Once I arranged them in the shape of a snowflake. I called it bloody snowflake. I spent the rest of the year and the next fall making all kinds of bloody disturbing works. They definitely were not my best works. In fact most of the pieces were really bad. It was the worst art I had ever made. But I liked doing it. It felt good and it satisfied urges to hurt myself. I wanted the aesthetics to work too but the process was what really mattered. I needed it. I painted the walls with bloody hand marks and spilled red paint onto the floor and studio trying to make it look like a massacre had occurred. I knew that if anyone saw what I had done they would think I was weird but I didn’t care really; it felt right. When it was the end of the semester and time for critiques, I knew that I was going to have to show my work. I felt stupid. It was so personal. But I did it anyway. I showed the work. I got the reaction I had anticipated, respectful, quiet encouragement. I could tell that my professors were not impressed with the work but they were understanding and just sort of sat back and let me do what I needed to do. I knew I was doing what I needed to do but I also knew things still didn’t feel right. In fact I hardly felt at all.

68 Bloody Snowflake 10" x 6"

69 THE SMELL OF PAINT

I have spent the majority of my life not connected to my body. It’s hard to describe but sometimes it feels like I am totally separated. I knew when I had been feeling that way because sometimes I would suddenly connect. I would be driving down the road and suddenly everything is loud and everything is very big and I don’t remember what I have been doing or which way I had been driving. I would suddenly be aware that I was talking to someone or that my food was gone and I didn’t remember eating it.

I told Dr. Ellis about feeling separated from my body and he told me it was quite common for people suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) to disassociate. I was starting to really like Dr. Ellis, he was easy to talk to and easy to understand. He never pushed me to talk about things and I trusted him.

During one of our mid week sessions Dr. Ellis asked me how my art work was going. I told him all about the new brutal work I was doing and he seemed excited for me and glad that I was so willing to express some of those feelings. Toward the end of the session, just before I was about to leave he asked me if the next time I was in the studio if I would try to notice things that I maybe hadn’t paid attention to before. He told me to smell the paint, to pay attention to the amount that was on my brush and how much force I was using to apply it. He thought doing this might help me start to feel a bit more connected.

The next day I got to the studio early. I locked the door and got out my paints. I started work on an old portrait painting trying to do the things Dr. Ellis said. I smelled the paint; I paid attention to the thickness and thinness. It was working. I could feel myself move in and out of reality. It was almost a euphoric feeling, it was almost the same feeling I got when I cut myself. I just sat there smelling my paint over and over trying to prolong the experience.

70 Brave–the smell of paint 8" x 10"

71 FOUR YEARS OLD

I was sitting in my studio, not really doing anything when I glanced over to the corner and spotted the tiny rectangles and squares I had made from the black and red drawings I did of myself as a little girl. I liked those little drawings. I decided to paint on them. I painted small circles with the left over paint I had been using on another project. As I continued to play with these small pieces I began to become very attached to them. They were important. I liked them. I decided I would sew them back together in a different pattern, that way they would all be together, but it would be a new painting, something more beautiful than the way it was before I ripped it up. It was hard work to sew all those little pieces back together, my roommate let me use her sewing machine but the paper was stiff and hard to maneuver around.

When I finished the sewing I was very displeased. The seams were crooked and the paper had torn and buckled up all over. I hated it. It was lumpy and ugly, not smooth and beautiful like I wanted. I hated it. I decided that maybe I could iron it down so it wasn’t so bumpy. But the paper was pretty fragile and might get hot too fast.

So I decided before ironing I should wash it. I took the quilted mess into the bathroom and threw it in the bathtub. I filled up the tub with hot water and poured shampoo and body soap over the top of it. I sat there for quite some time swishing and scrubbing back and forth. It was starting to fall apart so I knew it was probably time to take it out. I pulled out the painting and let it drip until it stopped. I took it outside and laid it on the pavement. After I tried to smooth down the bumps and push the torn pieces back together I realized it wasn’t really the bumps that were bugging me as much as the image the pieces had made when I put them together. It was ugly and I hated it. I went inside and grabbed the bottle of bleach that was sitting on the top shelf above the washing machine. It was my roommate’s bottle of bleach but she wouldn’t care if I used some. I went back outside and poured about two cups over the top of my painting. It was beautiful. I sat and watched while the bleached ran down erasing everything it touched. Well not entirely erasing it but it was taking off a good thick layer. I loved it. I went inside and grabbed all the other cleaning supplies on the shelf and brought them outside to dump on my painting. It didn’t change much so I put on a little more bleach and went inside to let it dry.

A few hours later the painting was dry. Except now it was even more warped than before. I took it in the house and decided to cut through the different sections that had shrunk together and caused it to warp. After I cut slits through the sections, it finally lay flat, but then there were huge gaps; so I filled them up with more paper. I put some fabric interfacing behind the new seams to provide reinforcement. I continued on stitching it, ironing it, washing it and painting it. I was still working on it a year and a half later. I didn’t hate it anymore.

72 4 Years Old 3' x 4'

73 A BEAUTIFUL HOLE

Shortly after I began work on the Four Years Old piece I acquired a large six by nine foot canvas. Someone had painted a teal, mint green thick landscape all over the surface and then just left it in the painting room to rot. Our professor approached us and said he was going to throw it away because it was taking up too much space. My friend Jeannie and I jumped at the opportunity to salvage the materials. It must have been over two hundred dollars worth of canvas and stretcher bars. Jeannie took the wood and I took the canvas. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it but I knew I wanted it.

I carried the large canvas up to the studio, laid it on the floor and began sanding off the mint green landscape. Sanding wasn’t new. I had done this before to my own paintings. I once sanded off a painting I had spent months working on. A hot shot artist from New York visited our school and told me when the painting was finished it would be incredible and that I would get noticed because of it. I knew that if I had kept working on it I would have eventually been able to finish it. But it was taking too long and I was starting to hate it. I sanded it off. I didn’t feel bad though. I never felt bad when I sanded something down. In fact it was incredibly thrilling. It meant that I didn’t have to buy something new to work on. After I spent a considerable amount of time sanding, I took a damp rag and wiped off the paint dust that had collected on the top of the canvas. When it was all clean I started to paint. I started painting flesh. I kept painting flesh. I painted flesh all over the inner section. I hated it. I threw it aside and didn’t look at it for a long time. Then I sanded it off.

It had been about six months since the last time I worked on the big piece of fabric. And I had no intention of really starting anything specific. But I was just looking at it and noticed that all the sanding had started to create holes in the canvas. I grabbed my scissors and cut around the edges of one of the frayed holes. Now it was a good hole. It was round and beautiful. I decided to stitch red thread around it so it wouldn’t fray. Now I had a big sanded canvas with a beautifully stitched hole right near the center. I decided to make more holes. Wherever there was a worn out section in the canvas I would trim it, stitch it and make it beautiful. Right then something occurred to me. I was trying to fix it. I was trying to fix everything. I was taking things that seemed broken, torn, stained or discarded and I was trying to fix them. It was then I realized that this is what I had been doing all along. It wasn’t what I was making it was the process, the process to fix something. It made perfect sense. I was trying to do the same thing in my life. I felt broken, stained and discarded and I was trying to fix it. I was trying to fix myself and I was trying to fix my art.

74 A Beautiful Hole 7' x 10' 75 FORGOTTEN FABRIC

I was going to make Jared Stanley a quilt. His old girlfriend made him a quilt and I wanted to make a better one. But then we broke up. But I had already bought two beautiful Martha Stewart sheets that I was going to sew together to make a duvet. I almost took them back but then I just forgot about them. A year later I still had those beautiful sheets. I found them one day while I was going through some cupboards. How wonderful to find two gigantic pieces of fabric that had been totally forgotten. I pulled out the one that was bright white. The other one was a sort of off white but I wanted to use the bright one first. I went out into the family room and began sewing pink shapes onto three different squares I had cut out of the large sheet. I worked on them for hours adding more and more colored shapes. When I got too tired to continue I stepped back to look at the three new pieces I had made. They did have beautiful colors and there were beautiful shapes but I didn’t like them. They felt stupid and contrived. I went to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of fabric dye. The color on the package said “wine.” It was perfect. I needed something like wine, something that I could stain these stupid pieces with. I had stained other things before and felt some what satisfied with the results. I put the three pieces in the washing machine and poured in the dye. I love pouring dye onto white fabric, it’s such a thrilling sensation. After they were finished in the machine I took them out again. I still didn’t like them so I pulled out the bleach and painted some new shapes into the now wine colored fabric. It didn’t go bright white again but it was beautiful.

Forgotten Fabric 1 24" x 24"

76 Forgotten Fabric 3 24" x 24"

Forgotten Fabric 2 22" x 26"

77 PORTRAITS

One semester I created a series of self-portraits. I thought it might tell me something about myself. I gave myself only one rule, to paint myself from a mirror. The first one was a rather sullen image of me wearing an afro hairstyle made from clouds. I created nine different portraits and each one looked totally different. It was strange to look at myself in the mirror for that long. It made me feel uneasy, sometimes I didn’t know which one was me, the painting or the mirror. I just kept painting over them again and again. It was never good enough.

After a while I put them away. But then my friends hung them on the walls in our house. They were a bit frightening to me. No one else could see but when I looked at the paintings I saw what I was thinking at the time I painted it. I didn’t like that those feelings were frozen onto boards and hanging up on my roommates’ walls. I didn’t like having to look at them everyday and remember how I felt when I stared at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like them.

Numb 18” x 24”

78 About a year later I felt the urge to do something with the portraits to change them somehow. I wanted to fill satisfied from all the hard work. I didn’t want to have a lot of stupid self portraits taking up space in my studio. So I sanded them off. Not all of them, the other ones I just painted over. Sometimes I would sand it all the way off and sometimes I would paint over the whole thing but sometimes I would leave the face. But I never left the body. I sanded and painted over all nine self portraits and I did it over and over again. I think each painting probably has about five to six different layers. No one else can see the history behind each one, but I can. There are only a few that still have faces but they have new bodies and the bodies are not real bodies, they are imaginary bodies that look like the lower portion of a stuffed animal or a little person in a Halloween costume. I like them much better that way. It looks like I am pushing my face through something and I’m coming out on the other side. It looks like I’m brave.

November 18" x 24"

79 CLOUDS

One day while I was in the studio I did something I had never done before. I grabbed a large painting that I hadn’t worked on for a very long time and painted my hand right in the middle. I painted an image of the top of my fingers down to my elbow. Then I painted large cuts all down the front of the wrist and arm. I painted torn flesh with blood running down. I painted it how I remembered it. How I remembered it that first day I cut myself, that first day I sliced open my arm so I could feel in control of my own body. Then I painted one of my eyes. I painted it the way I felt, that’s all I was, was a big eye that could see everything but didn’t have a body and didn’t have any feelings. I didn’t want anyone to see all the blood I had painted so I wiped off the parts with blood and sliced flesh, but I kept the hand and the eye because I liked the way they looked. Then I didn’t touch it for a long time. It was only after I met Alex that I started to paint on that painting again. I had never met anyone like Alex and he made me feel happy alive. I turned the painting so it was vertical and hung it on the wall. I don’t know why it happened but I mixed up some pink paint and started to paint floating bubble like shapes. I painted pink ones and white ones and some with different colors. Alex told me that pink means power.

80 Clouds 4' x 6'

81 FIST FIGHT

During one of my lecture classes I drew two fists, one with a dove sitting on top of it and another holding a razor blade. I pretended that the fists were fighting and that the dove was going to win. When I got back to the studio I collaged them onto an old canvas I found on one of the shelves in the bathroom. I stuck them on the bottom and then painted a large pool of blood right above them. I always liked that painting but I didn’t really like showing it to people. Later I painted floating shapes over the tops of the fists and a white shape in the middle of the pool of blood. Now you can only see the fists if you look very closely.

82 Fist Fight 22" x 22"

83 BLOBS

House paint: My mother had a lot of extra paint from when she remodeled the house. She didn’t really want it anymore and it was taking up a lot of space. She wouldn’t throw it away though. She gave it to me because she knew that I could use it.

In the Jacob’s house there is a little room that no one wants to work in because it’s so small and people are always walking through it to get up and down the stairs. Rob was assigned to it but he just worked at home so it was always empty. But one day there were a lot of boxes in there and they were full of little square pieces of Davey board. Davey board is the kind of cardboard you use to make a book cover. It looked like they had made some printing errors on a faculty show catalogue and didn’t know what to do with all the misprinted paper and board. But I knew what to do with it. I poured little blobs of house paint on them, smashed them together and then pulled them apart. When I pulled them apart it looked like all the blobs had grown veins and were now alive. I decided to let them dry that way.

84 Upstairs Downstairs 4' x 4' 85 “F”

I know someone was in my studio because someone wrote the letter “F” on one of my paintings. It was a little blue “F” down near the bottom. It made me sad for a little while but then I realized that I could just fix it. But I didn’t fix it because I think it’s good proof of how some people like to defile things and they don’t care whether or not it’s going to affect anyone else. They just want to do it because it makes them feel good. And that’s all they care about. So now there is a little blue “F” at the bottom of my painting.

86 Disassociation 4' x 4'

87 SHAPES

I think some of my shapes look like the little ghosts that chase you while you’re playing Pac Man. I think some of them look like bubbles and some of them look like blobs. Some of them look like bunnies and some of them look like bears. They are rounded and friendly, lifelike and unthreatening. The shapes I make now are a lot different than the sharp jaded images I was making before. When I was younger I collected bears, all kinds of bears, but mostly stuffed animals. My little sister Becky collected bunnies and one time a boy in seventh grade asked my mom if he could give me a bunny and my mom said yes because she thought it was a stuffed bunny but when he came over it was a real bunny. I named the bunny Amadeus after a song heard on KJQ. KJQ was my favorite radio station because they would play bands like Ten Thousand Maniacs and R.E.M. I don’t know what the song was called but it said…”rock me Amadeus, rock, rock me Amadeus.” But then I didn’t want to take care of the bunny anymore because it was getting bigger and would scratch you if you tried to pick him up. So I gave Amadeus to Becky and she started to call him Ammi.

88 Pac-Man 4' x 4'

89 LIGHT

I once made two paintings that only looked good if you held them up to the light. I said they were paintings because I had painted some big things on them but really they were a lot of little paintings on paper that I had stitched together and then sandwiched between two large pieces of yellow transparent paper. My sister Amy said she liked them even before I held it up to the window to show her how the light shines through. I told her I liked it better that way. She said she liked it both ways. I’m going to give her one of those paintings.

90 Healing 3' x 2'

91 GARBAGE

I have five paintings that weren’t my paintings before but now they are. Someone threw them away because they didn’t like them. I didn’t like them either but I liked the idea of having a free wood panel that I didn’t have to make and I could paint over or sand off and it would make a beautiful texture. Sometimes you can still see a little bit of the earlier paintings. On one you can still see a painting of a man on a bicycle and on another you can still see a Roman plaster bust, but only if you look closely.

92 Garbage 2' x 3'

93 COLOR AID

My friend Jeannie works in the stock room where the art students go to buy paper or book binding materials. Sometimes I will go talk to her while she’s working because sometimes it’s dead and there are no customers. Sometimes there are old or damaged supplies and Jeannie can sell them to you at a discount. I found a box full of little pieces of colored paper. Jeannie said it was half of a color aid kit that someone had left behind. If you take a color theory class then you have to buy these for your class so you can practice making all different kinds of colors. A new box costs eighty dollars but Jeannie said since more than half were gone she could sell it to me for thirty dollars.

I didn’t care that it wasn’t a whole box because I wasn’t going to use them for color theory I was going use them to make something beautiful. That’s when I started to make the piece “color aid.” I cut out hundreds of shapes and then put them together into different little pieces. But then I covered them in resin to make them even more important. It is funny though because the resin is kind of yellow and it changes all the colors. And so even though every color has a name and number now those names don’t matter because the resin changed them all. So now they are my colors. I like them better that way.

94 Color-Aid (detail) 2' x 2'

95 TYPE ROPE WALKING

When I was six, my grandmother took me to the circus, I’m not sure why I remember so well but the memory is quite vivid. I was exactly eye level with the tight-rope walkers. Every time someone moved across it I would imagine all the things they might land on if they fell and if they would live or die. My grandmother told me they were tight rope walkers, but I thought she said type rope walkers. I think I was in high school before I finally realized the error. Sometimes I wonder if there are other things that I am saying wrong. But then I wonder if it’s really wrong at all. It never did any harm to call them type rope walkers. Maybe it’s beautiful to be able to believe something that no one else does. Maybe it doesn’t matter what anything is called. It’s almost a disappointing feeling when you discover that something you thought was real isn’t real at all. Sometimes I wish I’d never figured it out.

96 Type-Rope Walking 9' x 12'

97 WASHING

Sometimes all I want to do is take a shower and sometimes I don’t take one for a long time. Sometimes I feel like taking a shower is too hard. But sometimes I can take a shower for a very long time and even scrub my feet so much that I almost scrub too far and then it hurts to walk. Sometimes I have to have the water extra hot so that it washes away the jittery feeling in my skin. Alex always knows when my shower has been too hot because my skin is always red when I come out.

I like to wash things because then you can tell how dirty something was. Because sometimes you don’t realize how dirty things can really get. Like when you vacuum the floor and then after you can see how much dirt was in your carpet and it makes you feel a little weird.

I think the first time I ever washed a painting was the time Alex and I went on a trip down the Dolores River, I brought my water colors to use when we were on long flat parts of the river and the boat is still enough so you can draw. I started painting a picture of a little red bag that was tied to the boat. My painting was horrible. I hated it and it almost made me feel angry. So I slapped it in the river and tried to scrub it off. It didn’t wash all the way off but I liked it that way, it almost seemed like a ghost. Then I painted on it again. But I still didn’t like it. So I washed it again. I washed it over and over as many times as I wanted. After a little while the paper started to tear. But I wasn’t worried because I knew I could just stitch it back together. So when we got home from the trip I did. Then I painted on it again. Then I started washing all of my paintings and I knew it was always okay because I could just fix them. When we were at the condo in Park City with my family I even put eight paintings in the washing machine. Sometimes before I washed them I would stain them. I used dye mostly but sometimes I would use soy sauce, sesame oil, Pepsi, tea and other things I knew would be difficult to remove. Sometimes I let the paintings sit in bleach all day.

98 Brave–washing 8" x 9"

99 STITCHING

Alex thought it would be okay if he didn’t lock up his bike because he was only going to be in the library for ten or fifteen minutes, but it wasn’t okay: someone stole it. I could tell he felt sad about it and I felt sad about it too. We were starting to ride our bikes a lot and it was making me feel good to get out in the fresh air even though I didn’t really like going up hill. It was always hard to bike up hills and one time I forgot to peg my pants and they got stuck in the spokes and tore a big hole on the bottom right side. I didn’t throw them away though. Instead when we got home I sat on the couch and stitched them up with yellow thread. I thought the yellow thread looked beautiful next to the dark green fabric. Sometimes I almost feel happy when something gets a hole in it because then I can stitch it up and I think the stitching makes the fabric more beautiful.

100 Brave–stitching 6" x 7"

101 COLORS

My colors started changing, even my professor Peter had noticed. He came into my studio and said “your colors are becoming brighter” and Alex says I don’t use red as much as I used to. But I still love red.

102 Spain 7' x 7'

103 NEW THINGS

Millie came over last night to help me put hanging wire on the back of some of my paintings. I told her how the other night when Alex and I went to the grocery store, I waited in the car with the doors unlocked and I didn’t even think about someone trying to break in the car and kill me. Millie said she’d noticed something about my art. She said she noticed it changing. She said she still likes the old things I made but the newer work feels better. I told her the new work felt better to me too. Alex said he likes the new work more because the old work made him feel sad and the new work makes him happy.

104 Hello My Friend 18" x 24"

105 FIX

I wanted to fix my life and fix the way I felt. I experimented with my own body, cutting, punching, starving, bleeding, trying numerous ways to find emotions and feel in control. I always had solutions; there were always ways to fix things. If I couldn’t feel anything then I would cut myself and I would feel. If I felt out of control I would cut myself and then I knew I was in control. If I was scared I would create barricades and escape plans. If I felt fat then I wouldn’t eat. There were always solutions; there were always ways to temporarily fix things. The problem was these behaviors were harmful and destructive and were pulling me deeper and deeper into confusion. I have spent years and years trying to fix myself, trying to discover feelings and emotions that seemed too difficult to unveil.

Working with Dr. Ellis, my parents, husband and friends, art has become the ritual I need in order to live day to day. I have come to appreciate my art as a place where I can experiment and communicate about how I feel and what I need to express, it has become my fix, my way to live. I can fix something everyday and it may never be finished. But I have found a way, a way to fix without harming myself and without clouding my mind. I don’t know if I will ever be satisfied with the work I make, but I am satisfied with who I am becoming and with what I have accomplished. I understand that making art was not the only step towards my recovery; however it was a necessary catalyst between me and other forms of therapy. I don’t want people to think that if they have a problem they can just draw a picture and all will be well. The art must be used as a channel that will guide feelings and exercise the mind. “FIX” is the greatest achievement I have ever undergone.

Art can heal. I know it can.

106 Brave (detail) 6' x 12'

107