Dreamscape With Spirit

My escape into a dreamworld of color, light and movement was always a reverie from my cold homelife. It’s not that my childhood was a tale of horror like many have suffered through. No, I had a privileged life with a horse and dog, piano and ballet lessons, and the finest high school in all of Southern Illinois, according to dad. Even so, my parents and sisters were always arguing, yelling and cussing and a few times it became physical.

 All of them ignored me if I stayed out of the way and quiet. But of course, they ignored one another also, when it came to giving love, kind words or a smile. Everything was always in turmoil, and that scared me.

Time spent with Copper, my first dog, first friend, forever friend; and then later with my gelding Spirit, was what gave my soul nourishment, love, peace, and freedom as well as a deep appreciation for the natural world. Favoring bareback riding, I would sometimes drop his reins and spread my arms as he galloped along. It was exhilarating and perhaps akin to flying.

The figure is nude to enhance the feeling of vulnerability in freedom. I was far too refrained for public nudity, and besides, nude bareback riding– Ouch! I relish that in the making of art, it’s the artist that chooses what to quote from life, and when to be creative with choices. Case in point, Spirit was black.

This painting is an homage to Spirit and how our relationship helped me survive my troubled youth.

“Soul Journey”

In many cultures, the mare is the symbol of Mother Earth, and in this dream world, she carries the winged woman. The white horse is often viewed as a celestial being. Highly personal symbolism for me, it is reminiscent of riding my gelding, Spirit and feeling the elation of flying over the landscape. 36″ x 48″ oil on wood panel. $4800

“Moody Blues”, my latest painting

I’m really loving this one! I’ve let the painting tell me the story rather than trying to control everything and have it conform to my original notions. This painting is about escape, a reocurring theme of my life; escape from a dysfunctional family, escape from a disappointing marriage, escape from the searing pain of the loss of a daughter, escape from the fear of losing another, escape from social contact. I’ve never fit in. I never learned to communicate my thoughts and feelings in words. I’m a hermit. I accept that. Making art is the only useful thing I can do to contribute to society. Figurative work is where I come alive.

Painting over parts that were from the original idea when the don’t feel right, is necessary to success. If it doesn’t flow, kill it. When I continue freeing myself up to add this texture here and those colors there, letting the line tell the story, them I’m getting into the mystery of how a painting is created. It often leaves the artist wondering, “Now, how did I do that?” During the 4 months I worked on her, slapping on paint, obliterating parts and tweaking weak others, I often had to walk away for days at a time. Then I could come back and sit with her again and feel what she needed. Then I could continue to enhance the mood. You can see the progression in the following images:

More detail images of the finished painting, size and price is on my webpage: www.SharonMatusiak.com/paintings

Evolution

Spending the past 3 years experimenting with pure line and color in paintings and drawings has been a challenge, which I welcomed. Aside from having fun, it has helped me move through a lot of emotional turmoil and grief. Seen here are a few of the highlights of this venture into the unknown.

This learning process has improved all of my work and now in the summer of 2023 I had the urge to paint something figurative again. Finding a sketch I had done years ago from a live model became the inspiration for my first figurative work in more than 25 years.

The sketch:

What I like about the sketch is the line quality and the use of color to define shapes rather than create a realistic image. Images of the completed 4′ x 3′ painting will be featured in my next post, but in the meantime here’s a detail:

Can A Line Tell A Story?

My paintings and drawings were always figurative, reflecting my life. During the pandemic I gave myself permission to experiment, painting and drawing both landscapes and figurative pieces without any conscious theme or message. Rather it was a quest to discover  the elements of my own visual language. It came as quite a revelation to find that the work that is most satisfying to me harked back to my childhood spent at the piano and in the dance studio. The mark making on paper and canvas that has rhythm and movement is what I’m finding most intriguing. This  has resulted in a series of small abstract works on paper and canvas, some in black and white others in color, titled “Storyline”. I’m proud to be flexible enough in my fifth decade of creating visual art, to evolve into abstraction and the freedom it gives me to explore.the mystery of transformation through rhythmic, moving lines. Aside from this there has been a surprising connection to my writing. The move into abstraction has impacted my memoir writing. For the past three years I’ve struggled with the desire to present my life story in an unconventional way. Making abstract drawings this year has helped me to visualize my writing, my storytelling, in a manner that’s not confined to chronology. I like the freedom to forge my own path. In this way I want to meld the toxic relationships and painful events of my life with the art I’ve made to heal myself. The following are some of my abstract drawings of 2021.

Finding Balance In A Troubled Life

Creating has been my life. It has been my constant source for surviving depression, heartbreak and tragedy. Now that I’ve entered my eighth decade I’m still painting, drawing and writing. I’ve been working on my memoir for 15 years, having finished my first draft over 4 years ago. That first attempt was more or less a complete chronological telling of my life events and my relationships that culminated in the death of my Mom. The situation in my biological family became so volatile and ugly at the hands of one of my sisters, that I swelled with frustration, anger and hurt. Few outside our immediate family saw or understood Mom’s low self esteem and her manipulative behaviors that ultimately contributed to her demise. I had worked all of my life to develop a peaceful, loving relationship with our Mom. She trusted me and always depended on me to help her. Hellion became my nickname for one of my sisters and she lived up to that name, wreaking havoc upon us all. She systematically destroyed my relationship with my Mom. I’ve come to understand that manipulation of the elderly is quite easy, for one that has the stomach for it. The elderly in their weakened physical condition become more insecure and can easily be frightened and then persuaded to do things that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Hellion was a master of deceit, compelling Mom to fear both myself and our other sister. The goal for her was twofold. First she satiated her anger towards Mom for not protecting her as a child. And the second goal was satisfying her greed. She accomplished both. Hellion succeeded in persuading Mom to change her will leaving us out. Because she knew Mom might come to realize how she had been manipulated ,she wanted her dead as soon as possible.. It was actually rather a simple thing for her to accomplish. She is a soulless wretch. For a number of years I was full of anger and hurt, but my writing and creativity helped that fade away. Am I regretful of the searing things I wrote several years ago in this blog? No. Not at all. She got away with murder for profit. She deserves to go to prison. But instead she will most likely suffer the same fate that she inflicted on Mom. After all, she enlisted her grown children’s help in accomplishing her goals. She taught them through example to mistreat the elderly.

But I’ve let go of that hurt and anger. I’ve turned that energy into beautiful art once again. And so my first draft has been severely edited and revised. My focus for it has changed dramatically. I’m working on a series of short stories that together fall under the theme of memoir. Where I once thought I needed to include evidence of her guilt, of which there is plenty, I now see the important story has far less to do with Hellion. The real story is about how I managed to create a happy, rewarding life after the death of one teenage daughter and how I’ve held it together through the fear and anxiety of my surviving daughter’s odyssey with a heart condition. The real story, the one that is more than a cautionary tale, is about how being an artist has been my saving grace. It’s a story about how finding a creative outlet can help anyone to survive the difficulties of life.

Follow my journey and see the art I created in the past, what I’m making now and on into the future.

^{Wound Up}

Wound Up is an oil painting on cradled wood. Details on my website www.SharonMatusiak.com/paintings

Wondering Where I Went?

I know it’s been a very long time since I posted. I’m writing, just not publishing. I finished the first draft of my memoir, but it read more like an autobiography. Boring timeline, even though the events of my life have been far from boring. The new draft I’m working on is more poetic as the theme has changed from what I’ve been through to how I survived. That might not seem like much of a change, but it is critical. Also, I’ve been painting and drawing furiously the past year, and the results are quite satisfying. Check out my web-site, www.SharonMatusiak.com Stay tuned…

Perspective

A girlfriend recently wrote about her birthday and spoke of her aches and pains with a broken bone and having to sleep on the sofa to prop her arm up to alleviate some discomfort.  She ended by saying she felt she shouldn’t gripe because she knew things could be worse acknowledging that she feels for all of her friends with their own private struggles. She cited me saying I just had cheesecake in honor of my daughter’s 47^th birthday, though she died at age 16.

There’s no disgrace in sharing ones complaints.  It’s the perspective of your own situation that matters because it determines how well you survive the inevitable train wrecks you encounter in life.  And my friend hit on one of the most powerful of techniques, that of realizing that your situation could be worse.

When my daughter fell into the propeller of a boat, I wanted to die.  The anguish was so bad that I contemplated suicide for quite some time and the only reason I didn’t act upon it was because I had another extraordinary daughter, Mary, that I had to live for; and so I wallowed, cussed, screamed, got up and fell down more times than I care to remember.  The pain of Debra’s loss was immense for both of us and it was only intensified by the circumstances of her death.  The brutality and the unexpected nature of it seemed more than I could possibly bear.

A few weeks after her death I was in the shower, most likely crying like I did almost constantly; with the water running over me I was reminded once again of the thought of the fish eating on the open wounds of her body during the 20 or so hours it took the rescue squad to find her.  Each time I had thought of that I ached more, but that time it was different.  Debra had been planning her life out since she was in the fifth grade and she was determined to be a marine biologist.  She understood the circle of life and it suddenly occurred to me that she would appreciate nourishing the animals with the communion of her body.  That gave me some immediate peace and it helped me to get out of that horrible stuck place because it was then that I also realized that her death could have been much worse.  She could have been kidnapped, tortured and raped and that would have been infinitely more horrible for her and us.

Lake Barkley eventually empties into the Mississippi and then flows into the open sea.  Debra’s blood made that trip and it is good.  It’s not what I wanted, but there is good to be found in the worst situations if you look hard enough.  And it is easy to look around and see how many suffer more than you.  Some parents have lost multiple children, like my friend Roxann.  Others have lost their homes and entire families to war.

It pays to be grateful for what we have, rather than sorrowing all of your life for what you lost.  I try to remember that and also I look for symbolism in the pain of sorrow.  That symbolism can shape my perspective and help me find new paths.

“The Book of August” was a short story I wrote several years ago about the anniversaries of important events in that tragic month.  The last time I saw Debra was the 20^th, she died on the 26^th, the rescue squad with the help of a scent dog found her body in the shallow water the next day;  the 28^th I demanded to see her body at the funeral home and was turned away, the funeral director fearing for my memories; the 29^th I held her hand and identified her by the birthmark on her leg. The 31^st was her funeral and burial.  And finally in 2012 I had a nervous breakdown on August 2^nd and voluntarily admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital for 10 days and while there my Mary had another heart surgery.  All day I was in anxiety, waiting for the call that she was safe.  So as you can see, it’s a tumultuous month for me.

August was once a time of lake swims, horseback rides and a celebration of Debra’s birth.  We’ve always had cheesecake for her birthday after she passed, because it was her favorite dessert.  It’s hard to celebrate and be happy when it weighs so heavily on the heart and mind that she’s gone, permanently from this place and time. Gone from our lives, a memory, never to be in the “real” again.  Like a beautiful, joyful soap bubble floating on the air, it bursts and the breath falls, and hope is hard to keep alive.  So, I try when I can, to do something really special for her day so the focus can be on life, joy and the future.  For example on 08-08-2008, an auspicious date in some calendars, we brought home our Bullmastiff pup Harley and he gave us 10 years of joy and love.

So this year we made plans to pick up our new German Shepherd Pup from her breeder on , Debra’s birthday and then returned to Mary’s home for the celebration. Thanks to Mary for finding the kennel for us because I would say this new pup, probably the last we will ever have due to our age, is perfect.  We named her Maya, a name with immense global symbolism.  Maya means love; she is the mother of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha; in Sanskrit she is the Goddess of Illusion; in Greek it means Good Mother.

So this month began with the auspicious choice to bring Maya into the family on August 8. We brought her home to an 11 month old male Bullmastiff pup.  Our rush, was because he was so miserable with no one to play with but us old folks.  Because of the pandemic, we had to stop taking him weekly to doggie daycare to rolic with other dogs. The two youngsters became fast friends, and it has made this month lighter, more bearable.  And to complete the symbolic bookend, Buddha’s birthday is August 31^st.  So on Debra’s birthday we brought Maya home and on the anniversary of Debra’s burial, Buddha was born to close The Book of August, bringing us joy, laughter and focus on the right path ahead.  Perspective is everything.

The End of Times

We find ourselves living a dystopian existence marked by a deadly viral pandemic, economic ruin, global warming, bio-diversity collapse, rising white nationalism and police brutality. The failures of the current administration led by a corrupt and insensitive president assures that the situation will only get worse before reform and healing can take place.  This seems a far cry from the America I grew up in.  I was born in 1950, a time of great hope and prosperity.  The greatest battle was over, or so America thought. Fueled by wartime manufacturing, the nation’s economy rode the wave of Victory and roared into the building of modern America.  The interstate highway system, bridges, public schools, pipelines and the suburbs were built, moving and accommodating the burgeoning middle class.  The GI bill brought newly found opportunities to many that otherwise would have never been able to attend college. The land of opportunity was perfect from my white middle class viewpoint.

The face of America was getting a lift as we moved into the decade of the ‘60s. The Civil Rights Movement gained ground and stature and won victories as we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done.  We faltered with an assassination and stumbled from that to a long, bloody war in a jungle on the other side of the world.  We watched the nightly news of the deaths of our young men, the bombing of villages and the napalming of the jungle; none of that ever seemed authentic.  What was the purpose?  Surely the Communists weren’t going to topple people and buildings all the way around the globe to us.  But those that can weave stories of ‘the others’ were teaching us to be afraid. It worked for a while, to get us more deeply entrenched in a war without purpose, without validity, without hope of winning or ending.  And so it came to be that the people rose up in protest to say, “enough”.  Young people, unwilling to die for some vague threat made their voices heard and they were eventually followed by others.  The fists raised in the streets ended the war, but never addressed the inequity of the deaths of black soldiers.

The same method of marginalizing the enemy in Asia was the one that had been used since our Civil War against blacks. I grew up in a small college town of rural Southern Illinois.  The messaging about people of color was subtle but persistent. Blacks couldn’t be trusted; they were to be feared; they were inferior intellectually; they were confined to the neighborhood east of the railroad tracks; a girl’s reputation was permanently marred by a relationship with a black man. There were three high schools in town: the public Carbondale Community High School for whites, the public Attucks High School for blacks and the University High School. Outside of our town, the racism was more ardent. Crosses were sometimes burned as warnings, other times black families were burned out of their homes.  I’m sure there were other egregious acts that I wasn’t aware of in my beautiful bubble of white privilege. The race riots of the ‘60s were quelled with force and empty promises. It was easy as a white person to give a sigh of relief.

The only time I’ve ever been stopped by an officer I was treated politely and I had no fear of violence, jailing or disrespect.  I was immune.  I lived wherever I could afford accommodations, attended the Universities of my choice, was welcomed in private clubs and shopped wherever I liked.  Literally having no personal experience with racism, it was easy for me to believe I also didn’t have any responsibility to push for change.

By the time I was a mother I was broadening my world outlook, or so I thought. Still though, I could hear the whispering voices from childhood warning against allowing blacks to integrate white neighborhoods and schools for fear of property values tanking. It may not seem like much progress, but I learned to ignore those voices of repression so that I could come to welcome the changing tide. Being self-absorbed I didn’t task myself with reading about black history or the civil rights movement.  My voting changed though and became more progressive over the years. I became ever more worried about the environment, not the growth of the brown minority.

And so it was that our country marched into the twenty first century with a swelling middle class consuming at an ever increasing rate. Consumerism was growing the economy and ignoring the environment. Life was good for most because the voice of America was white; ‘the others’, the black and brown people and their grievances, forgotten as always.

When Obama was elected I believed the world would be different.  In my naiveté I thought the tide had turned and bigots were dying out, LGBTQ rights would be secured, there would be prison reform and finally the fossil fuel industry would be taxed.  But that day of reckoning didn’t come and the system didn’t change much. The backlash to our black president was so ugly, I was literally ashamed.  As right-wing conservatives garnered power to block reform, corporate control in America grew out of control with the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United.  In its wake, the corporate hijacking of our government was complete and the progressive agenda that had benefited Middle America was crippled.

By the time Black Lives Matter was born, I was awakening to a clearer understanding of the world.  It was obvious that the comeback “all lives matter” was a cover. Imagine the outrage from those that find BLM an affront, if there were the same frequency of deaths of white men at the hands of black law enforcement.  The Tea Party agenda of non-governance and white nationalism grew and festered and then Trump happened and the mask of bigotry was off, and everything started unraveling.

As we hear of police brutality against persons of color, it has become increasingly more difficult to look away. The video of a black man being murdered by a city cop is a reflection of the systemic bigotry in our culture, but some people are bigger than life. As a youth George Floyd said, “I want to touch the world” and he has. His grizzly death must be catalyst for change.

George Floyd’s voice holds our collective cries for deliverance from the nightmare we find ourselves in.  In this time and place a lot of people are expendable; old people, nurses, meat packers, people of color, the poor. That’s what we’re seeing whether we like it or not.  People don’t matter anymore.  Corporations matter.  Billionaires matter.  What kind of world do we want? Surely not this one.  I see no path to building a better, more compassionate world for everyone until we face the systematic shackling of black people. Black Lives Matter! We cannot turn away this time. The images are too stark. The consequences too dire.  Turning away would be choosing evil over good, profit over life, power over justice.

We are living through a perfect storm.  Dynamic forces from several fronts are intersecting right now in 2020.  As our nation struggles with violence against blacks and protestors by law enforcement, we are also witnessing the collapse of the United States as a primary leader on the world stage because our president is a Russian asset.  Our democracy has morphed into a plutocracy that cares only for profits. White nationalism is on the rise and threatens a fascist takeover. The climate change crisis is bearing down upon us as we are witnessing environmental collapse of plant and animal species.  All these forces have intersected while we are struggling to survive the virus that is bringing both death and financial ruin.

And so now in the year of the pandemic we all live with anxiety.  I am filled with despair. Despair because the voice of truth, reason and the rule of law has been drowned out by chants of “Lock her up.” Despair because this administration has tossed aside the Paris Accord. Despair because we have concentration camps for children.  Despair because the agencies of governing are being hollowed out and dismantled. Despair because there is no federal plan to protect our citizens from a ravaging virus. Despair because the wake of Covid-19 is the economic ruin of the middle class while the one percent profit from our loss.  Despair because science is denigrated and therefore, so few willingly don the crucial mask. Despair because our allies have been abandoned. Despair because peaceful protest, a hallmark of democracy is under attack by the present administration.  Surely, we can do better than this.

My entire life, making art has saved me from hurt, from loneliness, from aimless wandering.  After nearly 70 years of this pattern, it’s the only way I’ve found to survive the anguish that life often holds and to celebrate the miracle and joy of the Cosmos.  And so I hold a mirror for you.  Every crisis has the seed for change.  What do you want to grow? What weeds do you want to remove? What structure do you want to build in our garden?

Note:  Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a writing challenge with three other amazing writers. We were given the task of writing our perspectives regarding the global pandemic and the racial tension in the United States after the murder of George Floyd. This essay was my submission to the project.  All the essays can be read here: FromBehindMyMask.wordpress.com

Moving Out Of ‘Dale

The dance and music lessons, the horses;  they weren’t meant to teach me something, broaden my horizons or give me a form of expression.  Dad made them possible for another reason.  He was obsessed with keeping me from making the same mistakes Carole and Helen made.  He called them boy crazy, and that wouldn’t end well.  He made it clear early on what his intentions for us were.  We were to get a college education so we wouldn’t be dependent on a man, and we were to get us a rich man, or at least a college-educated man as added security.  He was that straightforward.  Their early pregnancies were a disappointment to him and so bringing up baby was going to be different.  I was to have so many passionate interests that I wouldn’t have the time or inclination for boys.  I’m not at all sure just how well that worked out for him.

As I approached high school and my teen years, the danger-time, Dad concocted another chapter of his plan.  After noticing that there were a lot of boys at the stables where we kept Spirit, he went searching and found a ranch house with 16 acres in rural Williamson County.  After Mom had complained for so many years about living behind the railroad track berm outside of DeSoto, he was happy to announce that this place sat right on Route 13, across from the airport.  He excitedly told Mom and I as we made the drive there, that someday there would be businesses stretching non-stop from Marion right through to Carbondale.  He further said that someday we three girls would be wealthy from the sale of that land.  I’m sure he turned over in his grave when he knew how that turned out.

So in 1964 we three misfits moved out-of-town and Dad started buying horses.  I left Carbondale with mixed feelings.  I was till to continue at University high, with a daily commute and I be closer to my horse.  I liked the idea of living in the country, but this location seemed like living in a fish bowl. It turned into a miserable life.   I quit taking ballet lessons, after my long-time teacher Lin Schimick left Southern Illinois.  I studied for a while with another dance instructor, but she wasn’t inspiring and Dad made it clear that he wouldn’t provide any funds for me to study dance in college.  “You’ll move to New York and starve or get into trouble.” was what he told me more than once.  Eventually I quit taking piano lessons too.  Though I enjoyed playing I had reached a point where I wasn’t improving and so that felt like a dead-end to me and besides it was obvious that Mom didn’t like driving me 15 miles to piano and ballet lessons.  

As for here, I don’t really remember what she thought of the idea, but I definitely remember how it changed our relationship.  In town Mom had a friend that she spent time with, but  there was practically no one out there.  Inevitably, we spent more and more time together.  Weather permitting, we often went swimming together at Crab Orchard Lake.  We frequently went to see movies at the drive-in theatre.  In time she related stories about how she and Dad grew up.  While she taught me that Dad had a miserable childhood which accounted for his paranoia and disagreeable temper, we felt a bond in surviving him.  He had a way of ruining everything he touched.  He loved his daughters fiercely, but drove them away with his strangling demeanor.

He made having fun with a horse into a competition and then a mission.  It ceased to be any fun at all the day he came home with mustard oil.  Back then people who showed Tennessee Walkers often used the irritating oil to sore the horses ankles so that they would lift their hooves higher in their beautiful running walk gate.  It was a gorgeous sight to watch, but it was wickedly cruel.  That quickly brought on my rebellion.  I ratcheted up my nerve to refuse him and our days of showing horses was brought to a quick end.  

I was afraid to socialize and afraid to bring anyone home.  You never knew when Mom and Dad would start yelling at each other.  Mom constantly goaded him with her sarcasm.   Dad got drunk every night and the house was always dirty and junked up unless I did the cleaning.  I had a girlfriend spend the night one time and I regretted that.

Always tense, I was fearful of what would happen next.  I looked forward to the day when I could escape.  Mom kept telling me, “just bide your time Baby and your time will come”.  He wanted me to live at home and go to SIU when I graduated high school, but one way or another I wasn’t going to continue to live at home.  

I couldn’t study dance or music in college, so what was I going to do?  Dad was the first, I believe to suggest that I become a veterinarian.  It didn’t seem like a bad idea since I loved animals.  After a little research, I found out that the U of I was the only vet school in the state.  Only because of that major would he allow me to go away to school.  That didn’t turn out well either, but at least it was an escape from a home life that literally made me sick.