Worthiness, Shame and Freedom

This paper outlines my process, research, and journey toward personal freedom via the language of visual art, during my MFA candidacy at the University of Utah. I include the directions, discoveries, and insights from my personal story arc, leading to my MFA thesis show. I believe the culmination of hard-fought battles is more meaningful when you know the story behind them.

Worthiness, Shame and Freedom by Bryce Billings A final project paper submitted to the faculty of the University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Department of Art and Art History The University of Utah May 2022 Copyright © Bryce Billings 2022 I II ABSTRACT This paper outlines my process, research, and journey toward personal freedom via the language of visual art, during my MFA candidacy at the University of Utah. I include the directions, discoveries, and insights from my personal story arc, leading to my MFA thesis show. I believe the culmination of hardfought battles is more meaningful when you know the story behind them. III Acknowledgments John O’Connell, thank you for seeing me and helping me see depth, layers, and true understanding. John Erickson, thank you for being the Monk who both surrenders and confronts the General. You have the voice of play all throughout your work! I hope one day the same will be said of mine. Henry Becker, thank you for your insight and analysis. You always added another perspective in a way that helped me to understand. Kelsie Harrison, thank you for seeing something cool in me and helping me to see something new. Susan Courier, thank you for our bond and shaping my love for art! Heather Rison, thank you for being a lifelong friend and for so much time and faith in me. I have so much respect for you! Atomos Billings, thank you for being on this journey and being my best friend! This is your story too. My inner child within, thank you for getting me this far! I am listening, and I hear you. We will get there together… Sean Patrick McPeak, thank you for confronting my warrior and helping me to meet my Anima. Ed Bateman, you were the friend I needed! Anima, you are more beautiful than I could have ever imagined! Eric Billings, I love you brother, thanks for being a miracle! George Billings, thank you for giving me the gift of the construction eye. Lewis Crawford, thanks for being a friend and guide through this landscape. IV Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 2. Gendrospection......................................................................................................................... 2 3. Social Conditioning................................................................................................................... 6 4. Vulnerability ...........................................................................................................................11 5. Liberty....................................................................................................................................13 6. Awareness ..............................................................................................................................18 7. Ego and its misbeliefs ...............................................................................................................20 8. Trauma ...................................................................................................................................23 9. Hiding ....................................................................................................................................26 10. Development of Shame ...........................................................................................................29 11. Echoes of the Inner Child ........................................................................................................32 12. An Intruders Voice .................................................................................................................35 13. Imprisoned Beauty .................................................................................................................36 14. A True Voice .........................................................................................................................39 15. Construction of Self................................................................................................................40 16. Liberation .............................................................................................................................41 17. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................45 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................46 Appendix....................................................................................................................................47 V Introduction To escape Hell, one must first know what Hell is and what is holding them there! Choosing a direction gives clarity, but what if you're lost? What if you're in hell, and you don't know it? What if something has you held down in a cave, and the lights are off? All you know is what you feel. My research took many directions, all with the search for a true sense of freedom. It has been generated from what I feel. The more aware of myself I become, the more I've learned about my emotions' intensity. So, what did I feel? Coming into Grad School, I had two simultaneous emotions: an unhealthy sense of self-doubt and a desire to be free! Entering the MFA program, I brought one painting with me, something I felt represented my desire for absolute liberation. It was an 11’ nude version of Liberty raising a hand in defiance, giving the middle finger to those that suppressed her freedom. At the time, I had been working with a shaman who followed the teachings of Carl Jung and the archetypes of the soul. This painting, I believed, represented my Anima, the inner feminine archetype of my masculine embodiment (Jung 13-14). I had tried for years to paint this painting and failed. Graduate school was no different. Through critique and interpolation, my ideas were challenged. I now confronted and considered the views of masculine fantasy, the male gaze, privilege, appropriation, communication with an audience, and even technique to see if this was a voice that was authentically my own. Listening to these new internal and external voices, I soon stopped painting Liberty. I began to explore and research why I didn't feel free. I started by looking at the institution of gender, specifically that of my male identity. 1 2. Gendrospection My first piece in this series was Parts of Us. It was a separate but collaged work (oil paintings) of various male and female body parts. I grouped individual paintings in one mass; I wanted this to seem like a singular organism without the distinction of gender. Gendrospection 1, Parts of us 2019 oil on board 32”x39” Photo credit Amelia Walchli 2 I examined feminine identity and experience from the male perspective. In Gendrospection 2, Is that what ovaries feel like?, this concept would be a dual examination with two people and two genders exploring the other through cropped paintings coming together equally. I decided that this wasn't my experience and that I had no idea what it was like to be a woman, and so the final image was, in the majority, a male body looking into a female. I had hoped with this series to show more than curiosity, but also a desire for understanding the experience of the feminine, not only for those identifying as female but for my own internal feminine. I questioned gender as an institution. I wanted to see how gender was constructed; how my experience had been constructed. In Asia Friedman’s work, she expresses that the idea of binaries (only two genders) invites inflexible beliefs (Friedman 3). Friedman states, “males and females are in fact 98% identical. Yet the cultural notion of opposite sexes expands that 2 percent difference to 100 percent” (Friedman 4). I wanted to know if I was only a man, if my body dictated who I am, if the felt experience of a woman was that different from my own, and what parts of myself I had shut off to be who the world thought a man should be. Gendrospection 2, Is that what ovaries feel like? 2019 oil on board 60”x60” 3 Other works in this series examine gender from the perspective of male experience, juxtaposed to that of female identity. I had questioned if my own body shaped my masculine experience and at what cost? Judith Butler examines the method of the construction of gender and adds that the construction of gender may point toward “social determinism” (Butler 11). Paraphrasing, she suggests that bodies become passive recipients of cultural law, making culture, not biology, destiny (Butler 12). Gendrospection 3, Elegant 2019 oil on board 22”x48” Photo credit Amelia Walchli 4 At this time, I had started to work with Kelsie Harrison, a sculptor and installation artist. She had recommended I research the work of Robert Gober, best known for his sculptures using body parts, household and domestic objects, and plumbing fixtures to explore topics of sexuality, religion, politics, and themes of loss and longing (Matthew Marks Gallery). Gober’s works became a liberation for me, that household objects could take on new life and new meaning. In January of 2020, I made “The Porcelain Wall''. It was an 18’ sculpture of a urinal. It had a curving wall so that as the viewer stood in the place so many men do, they could not look up and see the end of the white tile above them. Stall dividers were placed at eye level like Chattel blinders to symbolize the corralling and domestication experienced through gender norms. Inside the grout at eye level and under the magnification of glass was inscribed “Limited View.” I wanted to show that the way we separate and train genders becomes an isolated and limited experience, that the walls of patriarchy were here long before we got here, and that the social contracts of gender were so oppressive that one could not fathom escape. The Porcelain Wall, 2020 tile, urinal, dividers, magnifying glass, and support 3’x18’ Photo credit Amelia Walchli 5 3. Social Conditioning As an undergraduate, I studied psychology, receiving my bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah. From my studies in sensation and perception, I remembered the work of Blakemore and Cooper. In 1970 they studied the “Impact of Early Visual Experience.” In this study, animal subjects (kittens) were placed in barrels with only one orientation of vertical or Horizontal stripes for extended periods. These subjects were isolated for months and then placed in a normal environment. The result was that the kittens showed behavior blindness, unable to detect edges of objects aligned in opposite orientations to the imposed environment (Aldenham Psychology). (Ortega) This study became a metaphor to me for socialization and the effects of early childhood programming. For me, only being trained with a specific path, whether that be social/cultural norms, education, familial conditioning, gender contracts, or religious upbringing, represented an unseen boundary, block, or scar that had taken away the fullness of human experience. In short, what we are exposed to trains us on what we can see, feel or perceive. I began a series of people and objects with a highly structured orientation of horizontal or vertical lines, representing the programming and social contracts we feel but don't perceive. 6 Untitled 2020 charcoal and chalk on paper 20”x12” Untitled 2020 charcoal and chalk on paper 7 This Idea of using lines to represent intangible constrictions was later employed in paintings to explore gender and social conditioning and specifically the scars left behind by this process. The Scars of the Masculine 2020 oil on board 32”x40” 8 The culmination of my exploration into the limitations of gender identity, specifically masculine identity, came in a video and animation piece called Escaping the Shadow of Gender. Here I explored the topic of male loathing. I expressed the shame I had developed around my own body and Identity. It was a shame that developed early on in childhood. I expressed my fear that men were monsters, that I could be a monster. This idea had been exacerbated through my cultural conditioning, not to mention an early development of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In my case, I had developed scrupulosity, a specific subset of OCD involving obsessions around sexuality and religious fears. Escaping the Shadow of Gender 2020 video, script, and charcoal animation 9 Escaping the Shadow of Gender 2020 video, script, and charcoal animation This video drew inspiration from South African Artist William Kentridge’s work and his charcoal animations. For Kentridge, charcoal lent itself to animation and “became a way of thinking rather than a medium” (SFMOMA, William Kentridge: transformation with animation 0:51). William Kentridge, Drawing for the film Mine, 1991 Charcoal and pastel on paper 120 x 150 cm (Kentridge, drawings-for-projection) 10 4. Vulnerability 2020 was the start of the Covid Pandemic. When the lockdown was initiated, I had been working on aspects of childhood trauma. This began to influence the art I made. There was a vulnerable feeling of helplessness shared widely, I assume, throughout the world. We sat helplessly and watched hospitals become overrun, and covid cases soar exponentially. I personally had a deep-seated fear that relatives and loved ones I could no longer reach, would contract the virus and succumb to the illness. During this time, I created a series of sculpted babies and placed them 6 feet apart (the social distance) around playgrounds and other structures, to show our fragility and helplessness. 11 Vulnerable 2020 Papier Mâché sculpted babies, photography, and installation. These installations drew inspiration from Néle Azevedo’s Minimum Monument, 2005- an ongoing work of 1000 melting ice figurines (Azevedo, minimum monument). Néle Azevedo Minimum Monument, 2018, melting ice figurines (Azevedo, Minimum Monument by Néle Azevedo Middlebury) 12 5. Liberty In the summer of 2020, together with multiple undergraduate students and friends, we explored the concept of liberty, utilizing the facade of “The Statue of Liberty'' fallen on her side, yet still holding the torch. In previous years, we saw families seeking refuge in the US separated at the border, with children isolated and housed in cages, the horrifying racial injustice of police brutality and killings of BIPOC men and women, and Indigenous lands threatened for oil transportation. As a way to express liberty that had fallen without notice, we painted a one-to-one scale section of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s 1886 Statue, Liberty enlightening the world, which was placed in a hallway of the Art and Art History building. 13 14 The remains of a dream 2020, latex paint, acrylic, and oil on panel, 160’x8’ Photo credit: Amelia Walchli 2020 Bryce Billings, Josie Margaret Holbrook, Valeria Johansen, Susannah Mecham, Nicole Melkonian, one artist remaining anonymous, Dana Hansen, Kendyl Schofield, Heather Rison, Atomos Billings 15 This collaborative project drew inspiration from the power of scale by the work of John Grade’s Middle Fork 2017- ongoing. Grade’s sculpture is a 105-foot-long replication and installation of a Western Hemlock in the Seattle Museum of Art (Seattle Art Museum). John Grade Middle Fork 2017- wood sculpture installation 105’ (Grade) 16 Working with a new media, this mural was projected onto for one week, with the following message: The Remains of a Dream 2020 Projection Photo credit: Amelia Walchli 17 6. Awareness Synchronistically in the summer of 2020, a friend contacted me to share the audiobook Awareness by Anthony de Mello. This book explored detachment from all beliefs about self and identity. It expressed radical acceptance of reality (de Mello). This became so influential that I read and listened to other gurus, like Ram Dass, Sadhguru, Alan Watts, Jed Mckenna, and Michael Singer. Collectively these authors/advisors expressed a belief that freedom comes not from escape, but from acceptance of reality. I listened over and over to ideas, not of flat acceptance of life and pain but observation and surrender. These new ideas challenged my view of the world, giving me hope in a time desperately needed. I created a work of this same friend expressing the bounds and rules I had seen as imprisonment yet with simultaneous acceptance. 18 Awareness 2020 oil on board, electrical wiring, paper towel, studio light 40”x40” Frame made and wired by Eric Billings. With this piece, Awareness, I drew inspiration from Robert Rauschenberg, who broke away from flat two-dimensional paintings by adding non-paint material and objects in his painting and sculpture series Combine (1954-64) (Robert Rauschenberg Foundation). 19 Robert Rauschenberg Canyon, 1959 Combine: “oil, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions, photograph, wood, paint tube, and mirror on canvas with oil on taxidermied golden eagle, string, and pillow” (Robert Rauschenberg Foundation), 81.75”x70”x24” 7. Ego and its misbeliefs My research into mindfulness, attachment, and awareness led to the existential threat to the ideas of who I am, even the attachment to being an artist. As a way to express my fears and sense of being lost, I created Lost Portrait, a video that explores the many approaches and starts to find myself and my true voice. At the end of this video, a final portrait is painted over. The work is saved in the painting Who am I without me? This work challenges identity and attachment yet also introduces the concept of the false self. In psychology, the “False Self,” a term pioneered by Donald Winnicott, is the false personality that develops when other strategies fail, leaving the true self hidden (Winnicott). 20 When I ask in the Lost portrait, “Who am I when all of me is gone?” I am expressing that, like the painted-over portrait, no authentic self is left. Lost Portrait 2020 video and narration 21 Who am I without me? 2020 marker, gesso, charcoal and oil on board 20”x20” Lost Portrait drew inspiration from the work of Sarah Cwynar. In her video Rose Gold 2017, Sarah observed one idea, that of marketing via the name of a color and the impact and manipulation labels have on status. The film style and narration were repetitive yet impactful, making viewers question their thoughts and connections with marketing and manipulation (Cwyner). I imitated this pattern in Lost Portrait, wanting the viewer to question the attachments that form their identity and the motivations behind these attachments. 22 8. Trauma My efforts with my research were introspective investigations into why I didn't feel free and what was causing the intense feelings of shame. Exploring these emotions, I turned my focus onto traumatic experiences that held me back. I revisited time spent on an LDS (Mormon) proselytizing mission with an undiagnosed mood disorder. During my two-year period in the United Kingdom, I endured an internal battle with religious scrupulosity and extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder. The DSM IV describes OCD as repetitive, unwanted, and intrusive thoughts and doubts occupying significant time and causing considerable distress for the individual. The individual compulsively tries through repression or actions to alleviate these fears (American Psychiatric Association 456-457). It is also interesting to note as a diagnostic criterion, an individual must recognize these experiences as “excessive and unreasonable” with the caveat that a child “may lack sufficient cognitive awareness to make this judgment” (American Psychiatric Association 457). In Mormon culture, worthiness was stressed as a requirement of carrying the spirit of god, particularly for those serving a mission. This became an intense obsession of mine, continually doubting and checking to see if I was worthy. With the nature of my disorder, this became torture, a continual doubt, and an attack on my personal worth. Between the intrusive thoughts and obsessions of guilt for possible offenses to god and a near inability to accept rational answers to these fixations, my mind was wounded. During these two years, I sent home less than a handful of letters, keeping secret the pain and sense of abandonment I felt inside. To honor this younger version of myself, I created The door Home, and Letter never sent. It was a recreation of the door to my childhood home, hung upside down in front of a reflecting pool made from the door’s frame. The paper ship set on the waters of memories records the letter never penned and never received, floating as a prayer on the doorway home. 23 24 The door home and letter never sent 2020-2021 wood door, door frame reflecting pool, waterproof penned letter - folded paper boat, 4’ width 13’ length 10’ height. Photo credit: Amelia Walchli 2021 25 9. Hiding In 2021 The journey of unearthing obstacles in my path led me to an existing situation, a fear of engaging with the outside world. Caught in a psychological loop, I had felt lost and trapped in what presented as fears of leaving home, social anxiety, and difficulty making connections. I created an installation that explored this feeling. It was a prison where a sculpture of me sleeping in the tub of a disheveled bathroom represented my fears of the outside world and inability to break free. Odysseus on the shores of Ogygia, fearing the wrath of Poseidon 2021 Installation 7’x7’x8’ 26 This work borrows influence from the work of Tracy Emin (my bed 1998), Marcel Duchamp (Étant donnés 1946-1966), and Bill Viola (Room for St John of the Cross 1983). Tracey Emin, My Bed 1998, Tate Britain (2015) Installation, YouTube (2:53) screenshot (Tate) Marcel Duchamp Étant donnés, 1946-1966 mixed media assemblage 7’-11.5”x70” 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage ( 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas) (Philadelphia Museum of Art) (Philadelphia Museum of Art) 27 Bill Viola, Room for St. John of the Cross, 1983 Video/Sound installation 168”x288”x360” Credit: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The El Paso Natural Gas Company Fund for California Art (The Museum of Contemporary Art) Later Odysseus on the shores of Ogygia inspired a painting of the same moment; however, for this piece, I wanted viewers to be aware of themselves and the fear they can cause others by their own observation. In acting, breaking the fourth wall is when the actor engages the viewer in a way that the viewer knows the actor is aware of them, and the entertainment is no longer an illusion or dreamscape. I wanted the viewer to see the door that stands between the life we have and the one we want. 28 The view of the fourth wall 2021oil on canvas 48”x48” Locked out 2022 Papier Mâché installation and suspended door (4’x5’x7’ grouped with painting) 10. Development of Shame I began to dig even deeper into adolescent and early childhood trauma. I started to investigate memories and moments where I lost myself and my voice, taking on the emotion of shame, which hides love for self. Shame researcher Brené Brown regards the distinction between shame and guilt as “shame is a focus on self, and that guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is, “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad” (Brown 13:56). I began to realize in my research that I had adopted shame from a young age. I had believed that I was wrong, that I was unworthy. To explore this childhood trauma, I used a language that was developing for me as a child does, that of sculpting. For me, there were no wrong moments in sculpting. It was a childlike medium with a childlike material. Papier Mâché was something I did for fun as a child, so it seemed appropriate as a medium for childhood trauma. 29 In one work, I examine the shame brought about through religious confession, particularly those involving sexuality. It was a subject already sensitive to me while suffering from OCD scrupulosity. In the LDS religion, worthiness interviews are held regularly. This process, for me, was intrusive and damaging. I did not receive honesty about sexuality and, in fact, received misinformation (I am here referring to damaging doctrine read to me from “The Miracle of Forgiveness” (Kimball 77-78) ), leading to further suffering due to obsessive-compulsive fears. For Unworthy the Miracle of Shame, I invited the viewer to engage and sit in the position of clergy and experience the shame of an adolescent before them. I ask the viewer to recognize this person’s needs and empathize with the emotions they experienced. . Unworthy, the Miracle of Shame 2022 Installation Papier Mâché, chairs 8’x2.5’x3.6’ 30 I started looking into traumatic moments/memories from an environment where punishment was expected and feared. Negative reinforcement and programming, as well as OCD, led to a fear of the world and feelings of unworthiness. I created a work, Volunteering for shame, for a specific memory from this time. This sculpture gave a child who believed he didn't have power a voice! It also gave me, as an adult, a physical manifestation to express empathy and self-compassion. Volunteering for shame 2022 Papier Mâché 60”x30”x20” 31 11. Echoes of the Inner Child In the fall of 2021, I experienced a broken heart from a failed relationship. I was triggered with memories of previous abandonment and began to revisit the babies I had made earlier. They were representations of the helplessness and pain I was experiencing. There was now, however, a change in process as I wanted more emotion to be conveyed. I began to use references of adults suffering anguish, despair, rage, and grief and modeled the wounded inner child with these adult expressions. Reflections of the wounded inner child 2020-2022 multiple Papier Mâché babies 32 Through this honest expression of emotion, I looked back at the work and what it was saying. I realized what I had been talking about all along was not gender, trauma, and liberty, but worthiness, shame, and freedom. Somewhere during my upbringing, between negative conditioning, religious programming, and the experience of toxic guilt brought on via a mood disorder, I had lost my voice and the ability to have love for self. I was Unworthy. The pieces finally began to make sense, and this became the focus of my thesis show. I began to organize my display in a way that mapped the gallery as the recesses of my mind. In the front of the gallery, the viewer was invited to see how I felt. In Training an elephant not to run away, a giant yet sad baby, sat trapped in a crib-made prison. I wanted the viewer to know that something was wrong immediately. Why was this baby imprisoned? Why was it suspended and made an obstacle, like a beast? Who would do this? In this piece, the bars of the cage represent the programming and cultural restraints of the world. As a child, the sense of self is developing. The child seeks only by curiosity, drives, and impulses to explore the world and learn its boundaries. In a sense, the child seeks to know and establish itself by observing how the world reacts to it. If needs and desires are met with boundaries, negative reinforcement, and limitations, without a way to satisfy the need, the child suppresses itself and its desires and learns what is inside of it is wrong, that its needs cannot be met. 33 Training an Elephant not to run away 2022 Papier Mâché, wood, PVC pipe 7’diameter x 10’ 34 12. An Intruders Voice Further back in the mind and the gallery, I wanted the viewer to be confronted with both the Shadow Self and the Harsh Inner Critic. As C.G. Jung indicates, the Shadow Self is an archetype representing the dark aspects of personality (Jung 8-9). This piece pictures Polyphemus, the cyclops, standing at the mouth of the cave blocking the viewer's escape. In Empathy for Polyphemus, I question whether the inner critic’s voice is the voice of the true self. In an attempt to escape the cave, I stabbed the cyclops, or metaphorically the “limited perspective of shame,” to blind that view and see for myself another way—a way to meet my needs. Empathy for Polyphemus 2020-2022 oil on canvas, tile frame, wooden stake 30”x40” Tile frame made by Eric Billings 35 13. Imprisoned Beauty I wanted the viewer to see an intricate room with no entrance. I wanted them to question what lies beyond? Is it my fears or my beauty? I created the Tomb of the Heart, a circular room with no entrance. I left this room sealed for three days. It was only if the viewer came back that they could see the beauty that lies within. The Tomb of the Heart 2022 oil on masonite, metal studs, wood 11.5’ diameter 10’ height 36 In a private performance piece, this room was opened, and symbolically my soul connected with my physical embodiment, masculine with feminine. My Anima set me free, and I her. I saw the prison I had locked my heart inside. I felt the earth shattering, and I burst with relief as my heart was being opened. I took the Hammer she gave me and broke out of Hell. The Tomb of the Heart 2022 Performance, painting, and installation 11’-2” x 10’ cylindrical room 37 In the back of the room, and symbolically my mind, was the true voice of the inner child. One was that of a child hiding, seeking safety, and the other that of joy and happiness. I created a storage room where the inner child is hiding in Where a child goes to hide their shame. This was an interactive piece where viewers were invited to crawl under the shelf and ask the child within, Do you remember where you went to hide when you did something wrong? Are you still hiding there now? This experience would be similar to Gestalt therapy’s Empty-chair dialogue intervention, where a patient has an imaginary conversation with a significant other (in this case, the inner child) to access hidden feelings and process these emotions (Paivio and Greenberg 419), We reconstruct this room of safety over and over, and while it offers a space of security, inside, we are not living or playing. The viewer is asked to speak with their inner child and help them to see a safe way to leave this hiding space. Where a child hides their shame 2022 installation 8’x8’x8’ 38 14. A True Voice In the furthest corner was The real inner child. This was a painting and installation to display that the true self is joyful, curious, and only wants to explore the world outside. The real inner child 2021-2022 painting and installation 2.5’x5.5’x6’ 39 15. Construction of Self I wanted the viewer to confront themself. With each piece, I tried to create a private environment where the viewer could connect with themself. Even my videos were in a secluded space or had headphones to allow for intimacy. In a self-portrait/installation, Do you know who you are? I taped my drawing to a mirror and hung the mirror at eye level so that the viewer knew it was them who was to be observed and inspire the question of how we construct the sense of self. Do you know who you are? 2021 Charcoal on paper, tape, and mirror Photo credit: Amelia Walchli 40 16. Liberation I have felt so many voices, agreements, concessions, contracts, and constrictions inside. They have guided, influenced, and restricted my behaviors, actions, and choices. In the best-case scenario, inner voices can reflect loving encouragement and guided navigation toward a need. In the worst case, these voices can become abusive intruders that judge, punish, and shame. At the very least, a harsh inner critic developed that served to intimidate and criticize the true self and core needs. Pete walker speaks of this transformation where identity merges with superego and self-criticism becomes a jailor (Walker 25-26). In my experience, if needs are unmet through this process, resentment leads to a sense of victimization from any that have suppressed the existential needs of self. For me, those needs are; the freedom to explore the world, to see my personal beauty and worth, to be free from social fear, to trust and follow my instincts, and to see and feel free to be who I am. Through my journey, I've learned that all voices other than my inner needs are not my own. I have learned that I can't be free and live my authentic life unless I quiet any intruding voice. As I worked on facing these voices, I heard my voice again. I heard it say, “I could spend my time swimming in resentment and inner criticism, or I could do what was authentically my need, to be free.” I began again to paint my version of Liberty. I had heard and considered every angle of what she could mean to others, but I had to listen to my own needs. I started Liberty because I wanted liberation from a life that did not feel like my own. To paint her, I had to embark on an odyssey. I had to see first the reasons that I could not paint her. I had to see why she, my soul, my Anima, was imprisoned. I wanted so badly to be free! Free to live a life of my choosing, based on my desires, free of the programming and contracts of the world, free of the intrusive thoughts brought on by an obsessive mind. Most of all, I wanted freedom from shame and the unworthiness of love. I learned on this journey that shame is the only thing that can hide me from my true inner beauty. By its nature, shame is doubt of self at a core level. Brown says that guilt is saying I have 41 done wrong, but shame is saying I am wrong. I wanted to trust who I am and my voice inside with a quiet mind. In January, I began a race to finish Liberty. I had produced art that showed every obstacle on the path to finding my voice, yet they felt like the voices of the false self. There seemed to be a simple solution; “Be my true self.” I have learned that others do not see me as I am but see me as they are, and then project their version of me outward. They have ideas of who I am to them, programming in their mind of who I get to be. How then can I be who I am if I am conforming to ideas of who others think I should be? I worked as long as I could yet did not finish Liberty. On the third night of my show, I put her on the east wall, flaws and all. Nietzsche gave an allegory in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885) of the camel, the lion, and the child. On a path to freedom, paraphrasing, Niche said one must first, like a camel, bear the weight of society and its rule on its back, being an obedient servant. The camel then wanders into the wilderness to become a lion, with its only job to fight the dragon. A dragon arises with gold scales having a thousand years’ glitter, and on every scale are inscribed the words “You Shall.” The lion can only defeat the dragon by roaring the holy “No.” A second metamorphosis occurs, where the lion turns into the child and, with innocence, gives the sacred yes. It is a “Yes” to life (Thus Spoke Zarathustra 24-26). Many philosophers have espoused similar notions of becoming like a child as a path to freedom. Heraclitus (c. 535 BC) is attributed as saying, “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” In my show, there was a camel (in this case, an elephant or giant baby in a cage), there was the true voice of the child with a painting and drawing in the very back of the gallery, and even a child volunteering for shame while holding the kite he wanted to fly. There was no sacred No. How could I ever expect to shut off the voices in my head, all of them not my own, unless I was willing to say “No”? It is for that reason that A New Liberty, unfinished with all her flaws, graced the walls of the 42 Gittins gallery. Liberty stood opposite Polyphemus, the harsh inner critic and shadow of my mind. Jean-Paul Sartre said that “Hell is Other People” (Sartre). I would go beyond this and say that hell is being disconnected from self by the voice of other people. But even this is only a partial truth. In psychology, there is a distinction made between those in the real world and the complexes or projections of those individuals in the mind. I have learned it is not the world I need to be free of but the echoes of the world loudly occupying my mind. I was now listening to my instincts. Through interpolation of new concepts and an approach of divergent thinking, I had been on a journey. My concept of freedom and liberty had been influenced and expanded, yet my representation of who she was to me was the same. She has been inside of me all along. I only needed to make the hidden seen. I have given a great deal of thought to what freedom means to me and to what I need to be free from, and what was the liberation I needed? I needed to know who I was without doubt and insecurity. I had to see the aspects of myself that had been wounded. I had to face emotions of shame that had hidden who I am. I had to see how these emotions developed from outside of me. I had to see past a mood disorder and its effects on my confidence. I had to look at my ego, being willing to detach and see who I really am. I had to reunite with my soul. I had to love myself. A New Liberty then, for me, is: To know, honor, love, and be that which I am. 43 A New Liberty 2014-2022 oil on linen 7’x11’ 44 17. Conclusion Philosophers, Gurus, and religious leaders have all taught methods for escaping hell, shame, and suffering. They range from non-attachment, forgiveness, repentance, acceptance, and even defiance. For me, the escape is only in my mind, and it is having a mind occupied by the self. I have observed my obstacles and know them well. I have built them, painted them, created environments for them, given empathy to them, and even blinded a shadowy figure in the eye. I recognize some of these voices as intruders, some illusions and others echoes of the true self. I faced these voices, and now I am listening for my own; I hear it now, and it wants to play, create and explore. It is that voice I will follow. I wanted to believe in myself and think that I was more than what others perceived or prescribed me to be. I wanted to be freed from my limitations and connect with a voice that empowered me. Entering grad school, I was a painter with a limited language of expression. If limitation is an absence of freedom, expansion is freedom. My language grew from exposure, and I expanded. My art became immersive, personal, and vulnerable. I connected with a sensitive, emotional core and learned conceptually how to enhance those emotions through materiality, choice of medium, and presentation. I was still a painter, but now I am becoming an artist. My painting that of representational realism, has meaning as it represents life. I strive hard to paint in a manner that emulates life by responding to what awakens something inside me. I sculpt to reflect the past giving ghost memories a physical form to communicate with. I even found a place for my construction skills, no longer a career that sidetracked me but as a way to make the everyday environment seen as new, seen as something more. This, to me, is what art does; it allows you to see something more and vicariously be something more. Art is the language of expansion; it is the key to beauty, the key to being free! 45 Bibliography Aldenham Psychology. Blakemore-and-Cooper: Aldenham Psychology. n.d. Summary. 27 04 2022. <http://www.aldenhampsychology.com/blakemore-and-cooper.html>. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000. Print. 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Encyclopedia. <https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-pressreleases/false-self>. Appendix 47 Gallery view east wall 48 Gallery view entrance Gallery view back 49 Gallery view west wall, photo credit Amelia Walchli 50 Gallery view south wall, photo credit Amelia Walchli 51 Anima breaking free, 2021 Oil on busted wall panel Photo credit Amelia Walchli 52 Shame is Death 2020, charcoal on paper on artist’s clipboard Photo credit Amelia Walchli 53 54