Virtually Healed
Canvas: 20” x 30”
Date: December 5th, 2019
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Artist Statement
Location: Valley Hospital—Phoenix
Theme: Virtual Reality in Healing Trauma (1 hour training)
I left home in the early morning darkness to drive to Valley Hospital. I still had no idea of what to paint at the training, but I went for it anyway. The hospital staff greeted me warmly and there was a buzz in the room as the helping professionals arrived for the training. I quickly set up my canvas, paint and brushes. The Lead CTRS and presenter, Penny Maas, came over to me and talked about new ways to heal trauma—imagination makes way for a new reality. Suddenly, I saw in my mind’s eye an image of something bursting through a glass water tank. So, I closed my eyes and the image shifted vertically. Then, it became a man under the water (struggling) with another bursting up out of the water (victorious and healed). They seem to reflect each other, but if you look closely you’ll notice that the man below is seen from the back, whereas the man above is seen from the front. The figure below is our traumatized-self which is cut off from our conscious mind. The surface of the water represents our imagination, the interface between the realms pain and wholeness. But, when we are blocked VR gives us another way to “immerse” into those deep places in the mind (funny how Penny kept saying “immersion” and immersive”). And, once we’ve courageously seen and honored our own pain, we can look up to the shimmering surface as a whole person—no longer broken, we’ve broken through to a fresh new world! When we “look back” at the surface of the water we see that the memory has become but a faint reflection of us. What was once distressing is now calm and it even has a kind of glow around it because it has become emotional strength. So, like this painting coming to reality, simply having the hope we can do it combined with support from caring people, frees up our inner capacity to imagine and then create a new literal reality of our own!