This weeks subject: Anxiety | Depression | Panic Attacks

Hello my dear cousin L ~

How are you? I’m really liking how this project is keeping us connected. Or – getting us connected. Even if when we don’t interact between postings (and I’m so glad we did connect this week) – I believe that doing work like this joins us together in spirit no matter the physical distance between us. We choose a challenging topic this week. I’ve experienced all three of these things in the past and part of me didn’t want to go there again. To photograph something like a panic attack means needing to try to remember how it felt – and it was scary enough experiencing it the first time. I resisted the process and had a lot of empathy for people who write memoirs about troubling pasts because it gave me a glimpse into how brave they have to be to take on that mantle of pain again, for a short time, to make sense of it and share it to try to help another human being.

I’m not sure if it’s a help or a hindrance to explain these pictures or not. Sometimes it’s best to let the viewer find their own meaning. What I will say it that making art awes me. I started off with a particular idea for these images – and they wound up expressing something entirely different then what I was consciously intending – but that are totally on point with how I viewed my struggles with these things. I’m becoming more convinced that Art makes and uses us – more than the other way around. When I give up control and submit myself to the process it is like making room for an idea that has been patiently waiting to be born to come through – we are just the vessel. Do you know what I mean?

I love you and am sending a hug.

♥T

Click on the images to see them in full.

Lydia’s post for this week is here.

About our project: Twenty Two