Visceral

They say an artist often uses their medium to channel  feelings, emotions, experiences. That art offers catharsis in times of duress.

This piece is my creative catharsis during a particularly spectacular bout of physical pain. Forget the emotional pain. I’m talking chronic… physical… pain…

Pain that sits so deep within my abdomen, I swear Hieronymus Bosch and company had set up camp. Neuropathic pain that pulses up and down my legs, neck and shoulders causing my body to arch when I lie down. Claws that dig around my hips, up my shoulders and into my head, setting off afestival of binary pulsars. A mysterious sensory roulette that visits random body parts at inconvenient times. All part of the pain party that my life has become. 

I’m thankful in a way:

Without this pain, I wouldn’t understand the anguish of endometriosis, the suffering of arthritis, the erosion of age… 

Without this pain, I wouldn’t realise what an insidious, invisible, all encompassing beast it can be...

Without this pain, I wouldn’t feel compelled to get up and create, in an attempt to distract myself…

Without this pain, I wouldn’t have patience…

Without this pain, I wouldn’t appreciate laughter…

Without this pain, I wouldn’t take time to see my friends who help me hold the pieces together

Without this pain, I wouldn’t have created this monster…

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system, time to return to normal!

Leather, copper, ceramic, blood, sweat and tears…