The Virgin Forest

Now that I am through the Commotion of my art exhibit, it’s been on my heart to say something more about the intuitive and creative process of making art…

When I was 7 until I was 17, I took private group art lessons with an accomplished artist in my town. There I learned printmaking, collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, you name it. For three hours every Friday afternoon, in an atmosphere of classical music and all the tea and cookies in the world (it seemed), my fellow students and I worked alongside each other, each of us in our worlds. That’s where I discovered that artmaking nurtures a deep, interior space inside of me. Let’s call it a virgin forest. A safe haven from all other commotion. This was and is my modesty zone.

A virgin forest is wild, untouched, unexploited. It’s full of growth, overrun with life and a sense of mystery. Kind of like what has become of my room at my mother’s hands since I moved out three years ago. The often quiet, meditative, passionate place of making art gave me room to express and probe my fantasies and fears during my teenage years. Toward the end of college, it opened up a refuge for me when my mother was diagnosed with cancer – a private place to battle and heal. More recently, bringing my art into the art world, bringing that inner sanctum into the spotlight has been its own rough journey to remain true to the voice God has given me.

What experience do you have of your own “virgin forest”? Do you think young girls and women (and also young men) can better preserve their dignity and modesty when they tap into art or another reflective space?

Comments

[Jeannine K.]

Erin,

Congratulations on your exhibit! I would love to hear more about it!

Your post is beautifully expressed...thank you. You state so wonderfully that everyone can benefit from "a safe haven from all other commotion" and "A virgin forest is wild, untouched, unexploited. It’s full of growth, overrun with life and a sense of mystery..."

I think so many children are raised with chaos and noise around them, with no place for retreat and reflection. Media, TV, video consume their dreams, and squelch their creative chances with unending distractions. Without quiet reprieves, the distractions of life become our gods.

For get-a-ways, my parents took all of us kids to quiet spaces, untouched wilderness areas -- literally virgin forests -- far removed from everyone and everything except quiet, lakes, and the slow peaceful motion of a canoe paddle. They never took us to fancy places, nor Disneyland, nor the loud and clanging resorts that so many vacation in. We would travel miles and miles by canoe in beautiful wilderness areas, albeit hard work with a few bugs buzzing around my ears as I hauled a heavy pack or a canoe on my shoulder. On some trips we went days without seeing other folks. But at such a young age I learned that a place of repose is where I gain my strength. It is why I have found myself seeking vacations to far away lands, far away from the distractions that cause so many hearts to be pulled astray.

It is those trips where my imagination, often crushed by the demands of my life, gets reborn-- even very young in a quiet forest I would hope for beautiful dreams, write in a journal for hours on end, imagine a future, write a new story. A few times a week I set aside time to skip out of my schedule and bike or walk in a park -- my chance to drum up story ideas, hum a new tune, imagine a new turn in life, or just rebuild after crushing disappointments...it gets very hard with an exhausting schedule to fit it in, but yet it is what provides the space to welcome Hope and imagination back into my life.

Without those preserved quiet places of wilderness or art, we can all be so easily led astray by noisy distractions and the false gods of the misguided.

Thank you for such a beautifully written reminder of where our art is born anew...

[Lori]

Erin, this is what a Sunday is like at my house. During the day, everything is off--the TV, the music, the computer. I don't shop, clean or run errands. It's peaceful.

When I started resting on Sundays six years ago, what first struck me was how tired I was. But I met Monday rejuvenated.