"Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendour which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit." - Pope John Paul II, Letter to Artists

John Paul II's beautiful words speak to a universal human experience we share in when we create. I do not mention the word "Healing" in my artist statement, but the notion that art and creativity can be used in the healing process is not a new idea. Certainly, there are many examples where a passion for creativity has helped people face and persevere against tremendous personal obstacles--especially in the arts and sciences. Stephen Hawking the renowned physicist or the deceased artist Gay Lauritzen, two highly creative people afflicted with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's disease, both passionate about their work and life.

Since my own diagnosis with Progressive-Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the freedom to express myself creatively through art has been physically beneficial and psychologically therapeutic. How so? First, creating artwork (or simply acting creatively) may not be a cure for Progressive-Relapsing MS, but it is an example of both a physical and mental process which helps me to maximize my own natural coping skills--while alleviating some of the negative emotional stress caused by the progression of my disease, stress which I believe increases symptoms and disability caused by my form of MS.

Whether a person suffers from a chronic illness like MS or not, we each do our best to overcome unhealthy stress and we each adapt to change and adversity. Our sense of self-worth is closely associated with our apparent ability to control change within our lives. When negative changes take place and are beyond our control (such is the case with MS), our need for control escalates. In my own situation, my need for control has at times become overwhelming. Practicing forms of relaxation that help me to let go of that need (especially during times of heightened emotional stress) provides me with a greater sense of perceived control over my illness, and may actually affect the progression of my form of MS. Approximately 6-10% of people with MS appear to have a form that is progressive from onset, but also characterized by acute attacks--in my case attacks have always correlated with periods of high emotional stress.

Regardless of what type of MS a person has, some common emotional reactions are likely to appear. A sense of disbelief, anger, depression, guilt, fear, a driving desire to regain control over one's life--all of these negative feelings contribute to an intense chronically active stress within the person. Of course, stress is an entirely understandable response to MS (and chronic illness in general). A diagnosis of MS implies a lifelong condition, progressive physical disability, emotional conflict and lasting adjustments. Stress is a normal reaction to MS and should be expected. Finding a positive stress-relieving escape from the disease can be extremely helpful.

Physicians claim that about one half of all people who have MS experience a serious depression during their illness. I have, of course, at times felt depressed about my illness. Interestingly though, I have never felt compelled to go on any form of antidepressant medication. I believe that I am blessed with a naturally happy disposition, but that I have also maximized my natural coping skills through productive positive thoughts that have inevitably taken shape within my art and personal life. For example, who I associate with and how they affect me emotionally has become an important consideration. I simply refuse to be surrounded by negative people--and this includes certain individuals within the medical community. I choose my physicians and my friends very carefully. They have a powerful impact on the way we feel about ourselves--rousing courage and hope, or fear and depression.

There are a wide range of physical symptoms that may come and go over time with MS. The disease causes damage within the central nervous system along nerve pathways affecting movement, speech, vision, hearing, and bladder & bowel control. What is not commonly recognized is that the disease can also directly interfere with a person's ability to think clearly. Damage within the brain can create changes that affect problem-solving, attention, learning and memory. I believe that just as physical therapy can help people with MS maintain as much physical ability as possible, mental therapies that encourage problem-solving, attention, learning and memory skills can help people with MS maintain as much cognitive ability as possible. Strategies such as art therapy and other positive challenging creative outlets may help improve or maintain partially impaired cognitive pathways within the brain, and may enhance an individual's self-worth and natural coping skills against depression and perhaps fatigue.

Picture 2: Memory (broken art)

"There is no human being who does not carry a treasure in his soul,
a moment of insight, a memory of life, a dream of excellence,
a call to worship." - Abraham Heschel (1907 - 1972)

Why do I invert the color of my paintings in my digital art? Well, the inverted color spectrum is beautiful, revealing in that it uncovers hidden elements within the paintings, and also emotionally soothing especially when placed along side the original sister image. The inverted colors also serve to remind me symbolically that scientists must ponder questions from opposing points of view so that eventually we find the correct answers to difficult problems. Below, the inverted image reveals itself to me as a solar eclipse and so I named the painting "Moon."

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"On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with the Venus star in attendance." - Record of an eclipse on Sun 3 May 1375 B.C. discovered in Mesopotamia. "I see the moon, And the moon sees me; God bless the moon, And God bless me." - Unknown

You may have noticed that I only work on square canvases. This is because while I am painting I do not consider the final orientation of the work. I paint freely and often turn and spin the canvas in different directions and then again when I am interpreting the final abstraction. Only after I have given the painting (and digital art) a name do they receive their final correct orientation. I call the process "Wakeful Dreaming" because much like the early Freudian and Jungian psychologists who first attempted to understand their patients' dreams using various techniques, I attempt to understand my paintings (and digital art) by giving them each a specific name which usually comes to me upon reading a famous (or not so famous) quotation, or idea. In this way the process of freely creating abstract imagery that I reflect on and finally name embodies an ongoing conversation that I have with myself. In practice, a dialogue between my unconscious, dreamlike, symbolic mind (characterized by my artwork) and my conscious, rational, literate mind (characterized by the quotations I choose). Together, the quotations and artwork speak to me as both a critic and a friend.

The last step to my creative process is to break my artwork symbolically. I do this by combining the original painting and sister image. I was diagnosed with MS the week before finishing my Ph.D. in neuroscience. I remember how I felt that week--shock, a sense of disbelief, as though a brick had just shattered my newly completed stained-glass window. Unlike the original paintings and sister images, my broken art stood alone without words when first exhibited. Since that time, however, something internal has pushed me to add a few words, a final thought. What would my Broken Art say if it could speak? If I could just continue the two thoughts expressed within each painting and sister image, what final thought might appear?

"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave
flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy
and freedom for you, there can be no real peace
or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we
expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless
we live for each other and in and through each
other, we do not really live very satisfactorily;
that there can really be life only where there
really is, in just this sense, love."
- Frederick Buechner (b. 1926)

My artwork is about bringing unity to myself. It is about listening to instead of shouting at reality. It is also about triggering my mind's unconscious thought processes toward healing--by paying attention to and making sense of the normally silent, repressed and often time distant elements within myself. Because I am also trained as a neuroscientist and believe that the mind plays a role in healing the body, I am approaching my art as an experiment. It begs the question do we have more control over our health than we appreciate? And if so, how might a person harness that control? Perhaps, by letting go of control entirely--the paradox of combating chronic stress and depression?

There are presently thirty-four abstract (non-representation) paintings on BrokenArtGallery.com, but I will discuss three briefly (with sister images) so that you might better understand "Wakeful Dreaming" --my invented "Healing Ritual" of unplanned creativity and imagination. Oftentimes, my analysis is personal and would only have significance to me, but these three paintings (and sister images) can be understood on several different levels.

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"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought." - Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1893-1986) 1937 Nobel Laureate in Medicine; "Reasoning is compared to understanding as movement is to rest…" - Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)

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"The point is that nobody knows. Things like the weather are so subtle, and what effect the rainforest has- on any of that stuff - oxygen, all the things that you hear about, the big scares - it's not known. But as long as it's not known, it's not a good idea to rip them up and tear them down, you know what I mean?" - Jerry Garcia (1942 - 1995); "Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!" - Saint Augustine (354-430)

2) Once again, created without planned intent, I interpret the painting "Rainforest" as the global act of deforestation--the cutting, burning and irretrievable extinction of our planet's most valuable and underappreciated resource, biological diversity. We are losing medicinal plants, insects and other species that may ultimately hold the cures for diseases like MS at an unprecedented pace. As a scientist who is also afflicted with an incurable disease, this issue is very close to me. I see the deforestation of the world's rainforests (and loss of biological diversity) as the single most important environmental issue of our time, and I feel symbolically linked to global deforestation and the burning rainforests with every passing day through the demyelination of nerve cells that is continuing unabated within my own body--someone should listen. I named this painting "Rainforest" after a relatively obscure quotation by Jerry Garcia (1942 - 1995) an American Songwriter and Musician who formed the Grateful Dead band.

The final selection of artwork is called "Escape."

"We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams, or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity." - Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934- )

"One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever shifting desires." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Art can be stimulating to both eye and mind, and can provide us with an opportunity to heal ourselves and others. In a drawing Leonardo da Vinci executes a masterful diagram with an engineer's precision of his legendary flying machine. Unfortunately, many people with MS lose their ability to do the very fine hand-eye coordination required in representational art and may stop doing art in frustration, but abstract art does not place as high a barrier to disabled people with limited hand-eye motor control and provides the same therapeutic benefits. Leonardo da Vinci once referred to art as being "the Queen of all sciences." --a Queen who offers not simply an alternative approach to obtaining knowledge, but also a way of sharing that knowledge with the world. Although MS has affected my hands to some degree, I choose to do abstract art not because of my reduced dexterity, but because abstraction is the only style of art that can be executed without planned intent, and therefore a way for me to dream.

,

A friend living with MS in Macungie PA, strains
to hold her brush as she paints with other
members of Dr. Weber & Sophia's

Creativity Class &
Broken Art Movement

in Allentown, PA,
Thursday, July 7, 2005.
(Frank Wiese/TMC)

Impossible
is supporting.