Tortured Soul -- Content Warning for Descriptions of Violence

Good afternoon, friends!  Today I feel like absolute crap physically speaking, so it's a bit hard to do things.  However, I don't want to get behind on posting again, so I am going to attempt to make a coherent post anyway.

A few days ago, I started working on what I expected to be a "scrap piece" on a 6"x6" canvas.  It turned into a tortured soul, bound in darkness.  She cannot see her captors or the blows raining down on her.  All she knows is that she is afraid, in agony, and has no way out of her situation.  She has lost all hope.

As I reflect on this one now that it is done, I can see that this soul is what my soul used to be.  Stuck in an abusive relationship.  No one able to help me get out.  No one I could be honest with about what I was going through on a daily basis.  Police had yelled at me, told me I needed to be "sure" about what was being done to me, because otherwise I was ruining a man's life.  I didn't feel I could go back to them as things quickly got worse and worse.  Threats of broken bones.  Actual cracked eye socket.  Concussion after concussion.  Sexual assault after sexual assault.  Knives held to my throat.  A gun held to my head.  Being beaten with a rod, a hanger, a phone charging cord, his fists, his feet.  Having his child's high chair thrown at my head, barely missing, then bringing down a bookshelf almost on top of me.  A lighter held just under my arm as he held me in place and threatened to light me on fire.  Food intake controlled so I wouldn't drop below his determined weight for me.  Limited time with friends, if any.  If I went on any trips anywhere, I was always "punished" upon my return home.  I started wearing long sleeves even on hot days to hide the bruises on my arms.  Tights under dresses or skirts to hide the cuts and bruises on my legs.  Heavy makeup when he lost control and left bruises on my face.  Even around the house, I had to cover up because we lived with other people who would see and comment on every mark.  That always led to worse consequences.  Opening the freezer door, shoving my head inside, and slamming the door repeatedly on my head.  He decided when I cut my hair, when I dyed it, how I kept my nails, how I spent any money left over after paying my bills.  I was not allowed to red out of the house unless he was with me, or else I was whoring myself out behind his back.  Direct punches to my kidneys and my liver.  When I got pregnant and finally told him at the 10-week mark, he ordered me to get an abortion.  I refused.  I had already had early testing done and knew I was having a girl.  I wanted that beautiful baby.  He beat me harder than ever that day with the rod, then raped me viciously with it until I felt an agonizing cracking and popping and the blood started to pour from my body.  That is how I lost my precious Elizabeth (Ella) Mae.  I was so paralyzed with horror and numb from the loss that it took me nearly four more months to leave him.

These are the things I put up with for nearly two years.  I am lucky to be alive.  Some days, my soul still feels like it's missing.  Like it's back in that house with his hands all over it, beating it into submission.  Those are the days where I barely muddle through.  Silent.  Numb.  Disconnected.  Trying to distract myself from the body memories and flashbacks.  They have been intense lately.

So I do art.  And I journal.  And I visit with my boyfriend and his daughter and grandkids.  I play puzzle games on my phone.  I make phone calls, send text messages, try to reach out and talk about anything but my ex fiancé.  Somehow he inevitably becomes the topic with several people I talk to.  People who have seen me through, whether from a distance or becoming hands-on when I finally left.

I will not give his name out because I don't want to get slammed with him claiming libel or slander or whatever it may be since the District Attorney decided not to pursue the charges against him.  He'll take any chance offered to come after me.  He used to threaten not only my life, but the lives of everyone I love.  He never followed through on hurting anyone besides me, though.

I'm going to go ahead and end this here.  Thank you to anyone who made it through the entire thing.

Healing and Peace,

Jenny

Sacrifice

 

This piece can be seen in a few ways.  Is the child being sacrificed?  Is the child being saved from being a sacrifice?  Is the blood in and on the altar fresh or old?  Both?  What's the story here?

As the observer, you get to make up whatever stories you like about an art piece.  Rarely do you get to hear the artist's thoughts when they were painting a particular work.  I will never be on a level with some of the big names.  I don't pretend to have that type of talent or patience.  However, I will use museum quality work as an example here.  

When I go to an art museum, I get to read background about the artist, and I get to read the titles given to their works.  However, when I look at a Van Gogh or even Da Vinci, I don't get to know what was in their minds as they painted.  I don't get to ask Picasso why he represented the world around him the ways he did.  These are people we don't get to ask.

When you have an opportunity to speak to an artist behind the work they've done, they usually have stories to tell.  On this one, I literally just started doing random blotches of white paint, and as they blended into each other, I saw someone holding up a baby to meet some unknown fate.  So that is what I decided to go with.  My person became an angel quickly.  The "unknown fate" became a bloody altar for human sacrifice.  I thought of all the Bible stories growing up about how the blood is what saves us.  A tale of Abraham going to sacrifice his son and being told at the last minute that he didn't have to after all.  The Bible's got it all, folks!  Human sacrifice, floods, incest, rape, murder, polygamy, concubines, music, poetry, gruesome gory horrifying deaths.  My head was filled with an unreasonable amount of rage and pain.  So I painted my own dead daughter as the child sacrifice, the angel representing organised religion sacrificing the well-being of our children for their twisted agenda.  The bloody altar is pretty self-explanatory, representing the number of people killed over beliefs, whether religious or societal.

This painting will never be a feel-good painting.  It won't be popular.  But it got out the emotions I needed to get out.  And that, my friends, is the entire point of my painting.

Healing and Freedom,

Jenny

Inner Child - Process Painting

It has been a while since I've put up anything new.  Lately I have been feeling uninspired and boring.  Not bored.  Boring.   Like my existence is a lie, an inconvenience, a cruel joke.  Even my art has felt as though it is lacking the essential soul behind it.  Emptied out.  I struggle to create or write or even function on a basic level when I get like this.

Artwork has remained a consistent coping skill despite lacking spirit.  The only times I feel truly inspired are during Process Painting or extreme emotional situations.  So I am going to share my Process Painting from last week with you.

I will be honest and say I don't remember what we were discussing last week.  But I do know that I felt dreamy and child-like.  I started by painting the canvas plain white, then gradually added some light blues, pinks, purples, even grey.  It was a pastel type of mood.  As my music played in the background, I started swaying as I stared at this mass of pastel colors in front of me, contemplating where I was going next with this canvas in front of me.  As I swayed and stared, the pastels reminded me of being a young child.  I have always associated pastels with innocence and light, young girls playing in dresses and hats, the freedom of running around barefoot in a patch of grass after taking off my church shoes and stockings.  I started to paint a form of a child dancing in pure unadulterated joy and innocence.

This painting makes me happy.  It reflects a time in my life when things were more right than wrong.  A time when I had a bright spirit.  Before trauma.  Before so many things I wish had never happened.  Before my light became dulled.  This painting is my inner child dancing barefoot in the grass, a free and colorful soul, tossing flower petals in the sky to rain down on my radiance.

Here's to better days and beautiful memories, friends.  May we all have these moments to reflect on as we grow older.

Healing and Brightness,

Jenny

Fear the Reaper -- CONTENT WARNING

He started as an angel...

Became a reaper...

And turned into Reaper of the Unborn, stealing their tiny souls, and carrying them to an unknown realm.

I want my daughter. But I will never have her. It leaves me feeling bitter, angry, impotent. Like I failed at the most basic safekeeping so she at least would have a chance. As though leaving my abuser would have stuck if I'd never told him I was pregnant. If I had simply run away and never looked back four months sooner than I did. I would still have her. She would have a life.

The Reaper would not have felt the need to take her to safer shores if I had just done what I needed to do.

I do not feel healing today. I do not feel light or peace or joy or any of the things I wish to my followers. I wish these things to you anyway, my dears. May we all find beauty in this dark world.

Jenny

Little Girl Bad

Little girl bad

Don't eat so much

You're not really hungry, just thirsty

Thirsty for attention

Thirsty for knowledge

Thirsty for affection

For acknowledgement of my good

But no

Little girl bad

You're not doing your best, try harder

Try to be prettier

Try to be quieter

Try to be perfect

Because if it's not perfect it's wrong

And

Little girl bad

But little girl tries

And little girl fails

And little girl just wants to be loved

And little girl bad

Grows up to be

Insecure and willing to do anything for acceptance

Anything for joy

Anything for approval

Anything for love

A shadow of her vibrant former self

And little girl bad

Crawls through this mess

And little girl bad

Grows up more

And little girl bad

becomes

a bad bitch

who doesn't need your approval

to love herself.

Ⓒ J.M. Hofschneider

Unsolicited Advice

Some well-intentioned person tells me I need to decompress.

"Just try to do fun things", he says.

He does not understand that those fun things

stopped being fun when the pain became relentless.

He does not understand that one hour of having fun

means at least one full day of recovering from said "fun".

He does not understand that simply taking a shower

has drained me of any and all energy,

and the fun I hopes to have won't happen because of it.

He does not understand that insurance

refusing the cover cost of tests and treatments

means fun will always come at a price

neither my body nor my wallet can afford.

He does not understand why this news about my insurance

has left me emotionally devastated,

the exhaustion so complete

that I cannot even explain to this well-meaning young man that,

as well-intentioned as his advice may be,

it only makes me feel even more alone.

In the end,

I simply do not respond.

ⓒ J.M. Hofschneider

Emotional Wasteland

How do I create when I am depressed, anxious, and completely uninspired?  This is an excellent question.  Some days I push myself to create, regardless of the emotional wasteland I find myself in.  Other days, I give myself the break I clearly need.  Today is a break sort of day.  I've been trying to journal and to draw, but nothing seems right.  I have the deep longing to create, but lack the ability today.

What do all of you do when you feel blocked creatively?  Do you take a break?  Do you push yourselves to keep trying?

I think I may start sharing some of my writings on this blog as well as the artwork I've been sharing.  Sometimes it helps others to see that they're not alone.  While my journals are relatively private, I think there's a lot that I can share.  Even if it's not a journal entry, but a line of thinking.

Healing and Peace,

Jenny