Dark Night of the Soul:
The Dark Night of the Soul is an art series that questions what is an acceptable
range of mood.
When I was a small child my mother suffered from
Bipolar Manic Depression and Paranoid Schizophrenia. Some days she was afraid of
everything. Sometimes she would cry for days on end. There were days when she
was filled with rage and others when she was lifeless and catatonic. On rare
occasions a ray of sunshine would touch her world; she would be normal and the
promise of the return of our mother would taunt our hearts.
What makes us human are our feelings. Feelings seemed to tear at my mother,
stretching her imagination and ripping up her sense of security.
My fear of the unknown,
my fear of being like my mother, and of falling off that razors edge into
madness has caused me to question my very existence, my every mood, feeling, and
shaky moment in life. This obsession has lead me to examine the concerns of my
subconscious; to paint my dreams and my day visions. I live a very visual life
and am a very passionate person. My flashbacks and feelings are many times
followed by strong visions. Visions that I call paintings. I sketch them down
on scraps of paper. I paint these visions examining my own sanity. Feelings are
very scary when they seem to be that very special human characteristic that
haunted my mother when I was a small child.
Through years of counseling, I am just beginning to get a grip on these feelings. With each day that passes I am learning to recognize, honor and release these troubling emotions allowing more rays of sunshine to touch my soul.
What I have come to learn is that everyone has moods; everyone feels pain, sadness, loneliness, anger, happiness and love. In this series of emotional self-portraits I hope to bring a sense of peace to others, who are suffering or who have suffered, in knowing that they are not alone in the extreme emotions that touch their hearts.
Laura M. Anderson