Sculpture Project: Creating Is Work

Creating is not only fun, it is work! Lots of re-writing.

I have always struggled with structure. That's the editing in writing. I am thinking and writing and drawing about the Sculpture project. I have some pieces already written from when I was depressed or reflecting upon it.

Then, there's the actual sculpture. I was speaking to my brother-in-law - Fred who happens to be very talented in the visual arts. He drew some ideas for the sculpture. One was a building with windows. We discussed the problem of liability if someone unstable was experiencing the cathartic experience and gets too emotional. So, then Fred proposed another very interesting idea. I have decided to call it the "swirl idea".

As I now see, it may not be feasible at all to do the sculpture as an actual "depression" in the earth. It would be expensive; it would have to be permanent - after all that work and I would be devastated if it were filled back in. Also, "Socrates" is built on a land-fill so....probably also not a place to do an underground sculpture piece. I think above-ground and either at Socrates or P.S. 1 Art Museum would be possible.

Anyway, one idea Fred and I discussed and he drew a rough of was that "swirl idea". The swirl doesn't go too far down -- maybe about 4 feet and then actresses/actors/dancers could demonstrate the entering and exiting of the depression. I am going to work on some sketches today. Another structure could house the artifacts of my depressions - the candy cane, the poetry, the drawings, a special tribute to bi-polar people with a tribute to SPLASH. A small carousel : Carol's Cell with a tribute to Carol.

The whole project is about understanding "emotional illnesses" as a hypersensitivity and the way out without compromising one's gifts to the world. I never wanted to say I had a mental illness. I don't like this term. It conjers images of someone so out-of-control and not aware of their mental faculties - psycho-killers, people without sense - I couldn't accept to be classified this way even though I felt like a "nut-job" in the Mental Hospitals. Unfortunately, for me and others like me, the association NAMI would possibly have helped me a lot if I would have looked into their programs. I will include the letter proposal I never sent to NAMI and the drawing with the writing in which i say "The World Has No Water and The Doctor Tells Me I Should Take ______________ (Forgot the name of the anti-psychotic.) I was being poetic!!! I didn't realize it then. My subconscious also said, "She has a thousand arms." I knew better that this elderly American doctor would not realize what i did after I healed that it was my "healthy self" remembering the Hindu goddess representing "generosity". Afterall, he asked another patient Walter when Walter asked for some medication, "Why? Are you menstruating?" Walter kept telling me how he hated the doctor and that he wasn't understood. That is unfortunately most of the time in the hospitals -- the doctors are rarely available and they don't understand. Emotions are viewed as weakness, whereas many times they are revealing a truth that the supposed "healthy" or "professionals" do not understand. In fact, they are so full of fear that the hospitalized person is looked at sometimes as a "contagious disease" they avoid...well...like a plague.

Well...that's it for today.