My Schieffelin's thoughts
Thinking about Schieffelin's article, it is easy to esteem that performance deals with the
habits of the body, bodily disposition expressivity and may amuse or terrify its' audience.
A performance which includes the process of everyday life, is capable of creating an
''illusionary framework'' to those who want to escape from their realities, maybe because
it is able to emerge its own reality....
Judith Palmer(1996, in H.Spackman's article) was wondering, the reason why do we have
to face so much pain, when so much violence is already brought in our living rooms.
Well, pain lives in our body and for many of us, is a routine that we must confront
during our small journey of living.... . While most of us would not actually want someone
to experience more pain, we eagerly anticipate more art, because it speaks to the pain in
our own lives.
The relationship between art and pain is undeniable. All art is birthed out of pain, in one
form or another. Pain is universal, which is the reason art can break down barriers and
bring people together. Art, birthed out of pain, speaks to our personal and communal
brokenness and our longing to be mended.
Great artisits create work that expresses personal pain, and in doing so, addresses our
pain felt corporately. I can listen to a blues song and be moved, because I can relate on
some level to the lyrics of the song. And so can the single mom, and the businessman
and the homeless teenager. The singer’s gut-wrenching story is my story. And it’s our
story.
Art that is created out of pain not only resonates because we relate to the pain, but
because we have an insatiable desire to be relieved from that very pain. In order to
experience healing, deliverance, restoration, and mending, we must first acknowledge and
confront our pain. Great art speaks not just to the pain experienced, but also looks
toward the day where we are able to move forward.
There are a lot of people out that who think they have to pain in order to 'create' art.
In a way, it’s somehow true. You know, you can’t fully understand love unless you get
your heart broken, you can’t write about all that’s terrible and sad and greedy and painful
in human nature until you experience it. Or at least observe it. But is there a certain
amount of pain required before one becomes a “true” artist? Can pain be measured?
Not physical pain (that one can be measured), but that pain that you can’t locate
anywhere on your body.
Pain doesn’t show up on a body scan and can’t be measured in a test. As a result,
many chronic pain sufferers turn to art, opting to paint, draw or sculpt images in an
effort to depict their pain.
“It’s often much more difficult to put pain into words, which is one of the big
problems with pain,” said Allan I. Basbaum, editor-in-chief of Pain, the medical
journal of The International Association for the Study of Pain. “You can’t articulate it,
and you can’t see it. There is no question people often try to illustrate their pain.”
The Broken Column,” by Frida Kahlo (Banco de
México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust)
One of the most famous pain artists is Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose work, now
on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is imbued with the lifelong suffering she
experienced after being impaled during a trolley accident as a teenager. Her injuries left
her spine and pelvis shattered, resulting in multiple operations and miscarriages, and she
often depicted her suffering on canvas in stark, disturbing and even bloody images.
Sacramento resident Mark Collen, 47, is a former insurance salesman who suffers from
chronic back pain. After his regular doctor retired due to illness, Mr. Collen was
struggling to find a way to communicate his pain to a new doctor. Although he has no
artistic training, he decided to create a piece of artwork to express his pain to the
physician.
“It was only when I started doing art about pain, and physicians saw the art, that they
understood what I was going through,” Mr. Collen said. “Words are limiting, but art
elicits an emotional response.”
“People don’t believe what they can’t see,” Mr. Collen said. “But they see a piece of art
an individual created about their pain and everything changes.”
At this point, I would like to add some artworks which contains sings of pain from artists
who experienced in it....
Title: Ripples of Pain, Artist: Dawn Koch (Yorkville, IL)
Artist Comment: There is hope that our rough, choppy waves of pain will smooth out even if
for just a short period of time. Your pain will be manageable as long as you keep hope and
laughter in your heart. Keep the tide of pain at bay. Get well my friends!
Title: The Gift
Artist: Yvonne Palermo (Seattle, WA) Artist Comment: The Gift, is one of my most raw and
emotionally charged paintings. Its creation stems from emotions of a victim of chronic pain:
physical agony, frustration, and the feeling that our healthcare system, with its aloof doctors
and careless surgeons, has raped me of my gifts of life and spirit. Shunned by the medical
world and seen as a drug addict rather than a victim of physical pain, there is no help to heal
or to find solace from the loneliness of chronic pain engulfing me. I chose to hide the figure’s
face from the viewer to play on the imagination of the viewer. There is no way to express the
intensity and agony of chronic pain; it can only be experienced.
Title: The Colors of Pain
Artist: Helene Ruiz (Miramar, FL) Artist’s Comment: I have an ability to see "aura," as
strange as this may sound, and noticed that the colors of my pain this particular day were
blues and purples with electrical waves of white, leaving and returning to my body rapidly –
and they seemed to blend. This piece represents my pain since sustaining severe spinal
injuries. Sometimes the pain feels like my spine is rippling up and down like a broken
electrical track full of electricity.
Title: Alone With My Pain
Artist: Coleen Shin (Cedar Hill, TX) Artist’s Comment: An existence of isolation and
loneliness, the feeling of waging a war against an entity who has an arsenal of pain while you,
having no choice, stand naked, defenseless before the adversary.
Title: Where the Pain Was Born
Artist: Coleen Shin (Cedar Hill, TX) Artist’s Comment: My pain was born of chronic
problems with my reproductive organs. After years of pain and infertility and numerous
surgeries, they were eventually excised by hysterectomy. I felt useless, anonymous,
completely ruined. The pain remained as if enamored of me. Internal adhesions complicated
my diagnosis of fibromyalgia, the "invisible disease." Depression, anxiety, fear, mourning.
Would my husband still love me this way?
Title: Face Of Pain
Artist: David Flores Artist's Comment: I am living in unbelievable pain. To cope, I paint. I
have no training so my paintings are raw. I cannot draw, and I never know how the finished
painting will look. It never ends up like I first imagined. Used by permission of the artist and
the American Pain Foundation.
Title: The Despair in Pain Artist: Ariella Yaron (Givataim,
Israel) Artist’s Comment: The drawing shows a tormented person suffering from acute pain.
The leg is oversized, since a person in pain concentrates on the aching body part all the time.
Imaginary huge pliers pinch his nerves. The pain torturing him day and night, makes him feel
as though he is in a mental dungeon. He is facing a black wall, as he sees no way out of his
situation.
Title: CP III - Trapped in Hell
Artist: Mark Collen (Sacramento, CA) Artist’s Comment: This sculpture symbolizes being
trapped by chronic pain. The rebar represents a prison and I am attempting a desperate
escape by pushing my face through the bars but there is never an escape.
Title: The Eradicator – Consumed by Chronic Pain
Artist: Dawn Koch (Yorkville, IL) Artist Comment: The title says it all – consumed by chronic
pain. This artwork represents my daily struggle with constant pain. The only part of my body
that does not hurt yet is still reaching out for help because I am not giving up. The artwork
also glows in the dark representing the relentless nature of my pain
Title: Pain -- The Divided Soul
Artist: Radene Marie-Cook (California) Artist's Comment: An aircraft accident in 2000 left
me with spinal cord injuries and an entirely different way of experiencing life. Intractable pain
is a brutal master that demands your attention to even the smallest of details. "Divided Soul"
expresses the dilemma that every chronic and intractable pain patient is forced to deal with:
the socially acceptable face we present in public and the private horror going on inside,
behind the smile. The scarred trunk is a nod to a personal horror I share with thousands of
others.
People can think that pain doesn’t inspire anything in us. Pain just hardens our souls,
makes us immune to tragedy.
But during watching some of the paintings, I do hesitate from not involving myself- and
as a result of that, my feelings- in this kind of expression/ exhibition...
So maybe, pain is able to remove our internal world and stirrup us, in order to amplify
and take a more energetic position towards life, and finally get self- determinated so as
you can find your own way to 'heal'...
Take a look....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1oK5LMJ3zY...