I began to empty away.

I've begun to think of art, for the first time, as a healing process. Could I use art to heal myself??? For me art was first about self expression, and lately, about discovery and process...But now...when my soul has suffered an abject objectification, and that shock has enveloped my entire life choking out all the sacred energies of living spirit...self expression feels poisonous, and the journey but an exploration into fatigue. At first I want to rail at art, in turn objectifying it, reflecting the rejection I've suffered onto all that I'm incapable of expressing; the limits of my skill, my blindness revealed in the margins of my narrow vision. But I cannot get away from this knowing that the greatest proportion of value for the artist in art, is the process, not the product which is past, done, a thing unto itself. And to rail against true process, which is not object, but life itself, is like throwing rocks at the wind...that instead of picking up a camera or a brush, I pick up the petrified pieces of my heart and throw them against my own soul in an interior battle that defeats me at both ends.

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This image "Health Hand Print" Elena Ray Copyright 2005.