Post 5: Barely Holding on to Peace (Part 2)
Art is another way for me to find peace. If nature heals me with its charm, art heals me with its freedom. Nature creates a channel for me to internalize my emotions while art creates an outlet.
I have been distant from art for even longer than from nature. I occasionally still go into nature (thanks to the abundant natural resources where my boarding school was, rural Pennsylvania), I haven’t touched paintbrushes in three years. Whenever I sit down with a canvas and brushes, or a pencil and scratch paper, I don’t have to think of anything else. I rarely proactively mentioned art as a hobby to anyone at USC because I thought it was not a hobby. It was an escape, a niche I stuffed all my hidden emotions in. I wouldn’t say I like art when I have nothing to vent to the audience, which is myself. Recently, I started to look back at the art I did as I gathered materials for WP2. Vivid memories poured out as I scrolled through my camera roll, the happy ones and unhappy ones alike.
Here are some art pieces I felt closest to:
It was college application season when I painted this. I got super stressed one day, barged into the studio, and sat in a corner. I put on my AirPods and started painting. I didn’t know what to paint or how to — — just like my college applications. I had no goal or expectations. Go with the flow, I thought to myself. That night, I slept at the studio. The next day, I went home at 11 pm after finishing this. I was surprised that I felt less burdened and returned to writing essays. Thorugh these two days filled with the smell of acrylic and canvases, I healed a little.
This is a portrait of my mom. Before I left home for boarding school in Switzerland, I never felt homesick even I grew up in boarding schools in China. My mom was busy checking off the packing list the day before my flight. I, on the other hand, was so excited and free. My friend asked me if I wanted to go to the studio, and I said yes without knowing what to do there. I sat down and thought about my mom. We had a weird relationship — — close but not quite, distant but still close. My memories of her are fragmented back images — — her back on the driver’s seat from my perspective on the back seat, her working back through office windows, her back because she walks fast and I can’t keep up sometimes. I didn’t have a clear image of her face because she hates photos, and I didn’t see her often. Why not make a collage of her face from my memories? I didn’t have enough time, so I painted a portrait of her face in my memory with two pieces of paper to symbolize the fragmented nature of her presence throughout my childhood. This art piece felt like closure and goodbye to my family in China. Indeed, I never went back home again for Chinese New Year. This year will be the fifth. Sometimes, I would think, what if I was closer to them before I left, especially my mom? Whenever I think about my family, I think about this portrait sitting in the drawer of my dorm desk. Yes, my mom still doesn’t know it exists.
In retrospect, the feeling of loneness and the sense of self were why I found peace in nature and art. The acknowledgment that I didn’t have to worry about anything else but myself allowed me to focus entirely on my thoughts, emotions, and well-being. Nature and art are my methods of loving myself, giving myself time, and fully being present. At the end of the day, if you don’t love yourself, how could you possibly have love to spare for anyone else?