A Perspective Shifting Portal
#23 in the Drawing into Trauma Series. The seed for this drawing was planted in the early 80s, while I was a student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. While there, I made a drawing with the same form as this one. It arose out of a primal, healing, scribbling movement. I knew that I had accessed something deeply powerful and meaningful, but unfortunately that work remained locked within me. It stayed buried, dormant and invisible, for a long time. But now the seed and form planted back then, has germinated, grown, and begun to bear fruit. This Perspective Shifting Portal that you see here, arose all at once on August 21, 2019, from intense primal emotions including rage.
Some portals, such as birth, are one directional. We journey through a portal to be born, and then find another exit when we leave. However, the portal depicted in this drawing is bidirectional. It depicts a wound, a vulnerable gateway much like eyes, for emotions and watery energy to flow in and out. When I made it, it offered a change in perspective. It allowed me to merge with abandoned parts of myself and peer out from within, and then enabled me to move more deeply inward. Now this portal aids me once again, providing an opening to bring inner subconscious material out into the world. Inwardly, I feel a sense of personal victory.
This portal asks: “Which side are you on?” And then wherever you find yourself, it offers an opportunity to shift perspective. But will you take the opportunity? Portals exist everywhere for different purposes. But many go unnoticed and unseen. We have to learn how to be sensitive enough to feel them. Sometimes, like with the seed I planted in art school, it may take 37 years to recognize the opportunity that a portal presents. Sometimes, it takes tremendous courage to step through a portal. May you find the skill and courage within, to recognize ordinary humble portals of value that exist all around you. May you take the risk to venture through them.
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