Creativity and Letting Go

 by June Graham

When you do something creative there is a sense in which you have to let go and take a step into the unknown. That’s how I felt before the first Sarah’s Sanctuary art workshop which was held in An Lanntair on Wednesday 1^st May, funded by SeeMe Scotland as part of their campaign against stigma in mental health.

I lost my sister Liz to suicide in 2019 and it has been hard to see anything positive or productive coming out of that experience. It was like losing a stone in a wall that was supporting many other stones in unseen ways and when that stone is taken out, all the stones around and above it lose their place. By taking part in this art project, I hope that something positive will come out of it, even if that isn’t immediately obvious to me. Liz was an artist and my hope is that taking part in an art project will help me remember and appreciate Liz for who she was and not just how she died.

The workshops are facilitated by Jane Harlington of Blue PigStudio. Jane began the workshop by talking about how each of us has a personal story which will contribute to telling a bigger story about suicide bereavement and the barriers and stigma associated with it. This will then hopefully help to raise awareness about mental health issues and suicide.

Now, when I talk about stigma, I don’t just want to point the finger at other people, because I also find it difficult to talk about suicide or suicide bereavement. In the months following my sister’s death, I was in so much shock that I was unable to talk about what happened. It was very difficult for me to even say that she had died, because I felt that it would somehow make what had happened more true. In some ways my body, which has reacted in many strange ways since Liz died, is still unable to fully accept the fact of my sister’s death.

It is difficult to talk about death and grief or accept a sudden death. A death by suicide activates all our fears. The Irish mystic Lorna Byrne says, ‘Each and every suicide in the world diminishes you and me.’ Before losing my own sister, I was very much affected when young people in our community, whom I did not know or barely knew, took their lives. Life is challenging. When someone is unable to keep going, it strikes at the roots of our will to live and also brings with it fear. We think about friends or family members who are struggling and ask, what about them? Will they be able to keep going? And behind that is the faint whisper which we hardly dare to acknowledge, can I keep going?

There are also historic reasons why there is stigma around suicide. Until recently, it was a criminal act. At one time, churches would refuse to bury someone who had died by suicide in consecrated ground. It is no wonder that it is a difficult topic to broach and yet, for those bereaved by suicide, it is very important to have their grief and loss acknowledged and not brushed under the carpet.

After Liz died, I was in a state of total emotional numbness, unable to feel anything. Sarah’s Sanctuary, provided a confidential space where I could acknowledge my grief and talk about what happened with people who had gone through similar experiences. Being able to talk in a confidential and safe atmosphere made a huge difference. Gradually, my feelings began to come back although there are still difficult days, difficult weeks, difficult phases.

To get back to the art workshops, our first task set by Jane was to write anything that came to mind connected with the workshops. We then went through a process of folding and cutting the paper into a book shape so that some words showed while others were hidden. Jane then asked us to highlight one or two words which stood out to us on the book ‘pages’.

One of my words was ‘ideal’. I can’t remember why I wrote it in the first place, but it leapt out because I’m a perfectionist. I want life to be a certain way and when Liz died, my ideas about how life should be were shattered. It became difficult just to cope with everyday routines and simple tasks.

We put the words to one side and Jane brought out acrylic paint and rollers and showed us how to ink up a plastic plate and add textures or patterns so that when we printed there would be spaces where the underlying paper showed through. We would be using these pages to make a memory book. She reminded us that in these art workshops, it’s up to each of us what we want to share with others. if we’re not comfortable sharing, we can keep everything we make private.

Jane had brought along old magazine pages and maps to print on so that some of the underlying picture or words would show through. The idea behind this is that people don’t ever see the whole picture of who we are. But perhaps we can reveal enough so that others understand.

My first attempt at printmaking was lamentable. I didn’t apply enough ink and bits of paper peeled off as I pulled the sheet of paper away. Even when I began to get the hang of it, things didn’t turn out quite how I expected. Each piece was an experiment. Without complete control of the medium, it was exciting and also a little scary to see how the prints would turn out. But that’s how life is. When we do something new, we often don’t know what’s going to happen and we can’t control all the factors.

As we worked on the prints, we reflected on the fact that we rarely as adults get the opportunity to just be creative and have fun. Once we had cleaned up the rollers and the printing pads, Jane brought us back to the list of words we made at the start and set us the challenge of writing a Haiku.

Although I don’t consider myself great at poetry – there are too many fuzzy edges and unknowns for me to be completely comfortable with it – I managed a Haiku in which the word ‘ideal’ played an important part. This blog is about process rather than product and so I’m not quite ready to share it yet.

In summary, I felt very supported at this first workshop to be creative in a way that was not structured. For me, one of the consequences of suicide bereavement has been a deep discomfort with the unknown and fear of situations where I might feel overwhelmed. It felt healing to be in a situation where I was to some extent letting go of control and allowing something to grow out of the smudges and mistakes in printmaking. My over-vigilant brain, which is always trying to foresee and forestall potential problems, received a lesson that sometimes letting go and allowing things to develop can result in something unexpectedly beautiful.