Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Reflection, acceptance, and rejection. IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!

After the holidays, and before the new year, I would like to do what I think everyone is doing right now and that is, REFLECT. The past year has been one of the most eventful of my life, I think, and has brought about much joy, insight, and change.

This year, I quit my job, became a full-time artist, got married to the most amazing person I've ever known, started an artist's association, and somewhere in there I organized about 10 art shows. OK, I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, I've been a very busy girl. I also went from working in the public, to spending most of my time alone. This extrovert to introvert conversion has been interesting and difficult.

One of the recent shows I've had, was "What Would Buddha do?", an exhibition I shared with fabric artist Joan Sowada. I think this particular exhibition may have started something new with my work, my life, and my understanding of pretty much everything around me. While having one of many interesting conversations at the Buddha show, I had a sort of profound realization about acceptance, about how deeply grateful I am for the acceptance I have received in my life.

I think of Joan Sowada as one of my art mothers. She is one of my favorite people, but she is also one of my favorite artists. Her work is so well developed, I was intimidated to show with her, but she is unassuming and it WAS her idea, so I did it anyway. It was during our show together, during a conversation about something unrelated, that I realized that I loved Joan and her family so much, because they had always accepted everyone just for who they were, and that included me.

For days after the show I was flooded with gratitude for all the people in my life who have always just loved me, and didn't care about the details of my life they didn't agree with. They came to me in dreams, they came to me in memories, and gratitude for their acceptance was all I could see. It was intense. One of those days, I was writing about acceptance in my pottery journal, and trying to imagine what sort of ceramic forms would best present this topic. I thought immediately of plates, platters, and big wide bowls, all of these are forms that ACCEPT almost anything, they are wide open, and they SERVE people. I loved the metaphor! I was almost gleeful to begin, when in an instant it hit me, NONACCEPTANCE, UNACCEPTANCE, REJECTION!

And it happened just as before when I thought of every person in my life who had been accepting, only this time, I thought of the people in my life who have decided that a detail of my life that they do not understand is so great that they must cast me out of their life. For days I was in a gloom, trying to resolve these rejections in my mind, trying to accept the rejection. Coincidence or not, I started to feel better when I came up with a symbol for rejection.

Nonacceptance is damaging, it is hurtful, it causes deep wounds that can sometimes take generations to heal. The sculptural form I have come up with for Nonacceptance, is a very simple one. It is a stone. Stones are cast. A stone can hold nothing. A stone is cold and hard. The harder the stone, the more impenetrable it is, and the more damage it can do. But stones can be crushed, and stones can be melted, and be made into new things. That is after all, what clay is, small parts of mountains, washed to mud, made into something different, and then fired to create a new material.

My reflection: As an experiment, I'm going to collect the stones that have been given to me, hurled at me, or that have simply developed like calluses over the years. I want to melt them down, and then send the stone-throwers plates of love. If you receive a plate from me in the mail, it means I've been hurt but I love you and accept your rejection for what it is, a stone that comes between us. I'm chipping away at my side, I hope you will too so we can meet in the middle.

With love, acceptance, and gratitude,
Ariane