Mental Illness, Paint Sticks, It All Works Out Sometimes

May is Mental Illness Awareness Month. You can celebrate by reading Mark Vonnegut’s “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So.” Mark is Kurt Vonnegut’s son. He’s also bipolar and schizophrenic. And a pediatrician. 

Although I didn’t have Mental Illness Awareness Month in mind when I pitched this idea to my painting teacher, the final critique and my explanation of my painting to the class is on May 5. For years, I’ve wanted to create art that showed people what bipolar disorder felt like. Meanwhile, the rest of the class painted a post modern piece. Post modern is supposed to be about rebellion. I had considered calling my painting “What d’ya got?” That was Marlon Brando’s famous line from the movie, The Wild One. I realized most of my classmates were born after I went through menopause and I doubt any of them would understand the reference. Instead, I call the painting, Inside Deb’s Brain. 

I had something else in mind when I started the painting, but I think where I ended up is better than where I was aiming. I aimed at smooth transitions between each part of the painting. I can’t think of a single smooth part of bipolar disorder. My brain has a mind of its own and never consults me before deciding to be manic or depressed. 

I have synesthesia. Synesthesia is when two senses respond to one stimulus and there are many forms of synesthesia. There are people who smell words. Kandinsky heard music when he looked at a color. I see energy flows as colors. I only understand two of the colors – purple and golden white. Purple is healing energy. Golden white is Divine energy. The purple in the painting represents both healing and center – the nearly impossible to attain place where I’m neither manic nor depressive. Depression is below center. Manic is above center. The painting also shows a mixed episode. The last mixed episode I had nearly killed me. I was bouncing off the ceiling while deciding how, when and where to kill myself. The terrifying part is I had no clue I was depressed.

I wanted to show golden white Divine energy, but there’s no oil paint named golden white. Nor is there iridescent oil paint. I remembered I bought Sennelier oil pastels several years ago. The paint stick origin story I read was that Picasso wanted an oil paint that didn’t dry out, didn’t spill, didn’t need solvent, was portable, and could be used on all surfaces. He almost got what he wanted. I, and a whole lot of other fiber artists, discovered oil sticks and fabric are incompatible. We were told if we set the paint with a hot iron, the paint would be permanent. Nope. That resulted in a mess on the bottom of the iron, and paint that washed out of the fabric. Plus, the sunflower oil used to suspend the pigments bled into the surrounding fabric. And so the paint sticks sat in a drawer for many years. Until I remembered I had them and they could be used over oil paint. I decided to add iridescent gold to my bipolar painting. That almost worked. I learned it’s best to plan where to use the paint sticks before starting the painting. I learned other things while not getting the expected result. I found myself putting Divine energy throughout the painting rather than in the healing part. I realized there’s Divine energy no matter what I’m feeling, so there are inexpertly applied paint stick color throughout the painting. Moral: It’s Good To Be A Packrat. 

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Deb Thuman Art, my online store, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com