ART

TOKYO METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Many of us are doing the thing that someone else told us we had to do. But what if we unleashed our true potential and went courageously in the direction that whispers our name in the night? This piece encourages us to follow our passion, buckling up for what is sure to be a thrilling and fulfilling, well-lived life. You are never too old to change course. In my forties, I closed my clinical practice and applied to art school. I’m now living my best life after earning an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

What is Creative Resilience?

It’s taking whatever life throws at you and processing it into beauty and growth. It’s learning to letting go of the pain and suffering and appreciating the joyful highs that we couldn’t experience or recognize without the difficult lows.

Two Truths and a Lie

Truth Number One

When I was thirteen, I came home from school very excited after they tested our career aptitudes. I waved my career inventory proudly at Mother and declared, “I’m going to be an Artist!” She took it from me and read the two other results. Kindergarten Teacher and Psychologist. She said, “No, you’re going to become a doctor so you can take care of me. I want you to buy me a red Corvette and a nice house…” the list went on.

Truth Number Two

I was an obedient servant–I mean daughter–and so I did study psychology and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Counseling. But it always felt like something was missing. I think we’re born destined to do a certain thing, and when you don’t, or it’s taken from you, it causes agida, which is Italian for heartburn. Think about that word, a burning in your heart. My heart was on fire. I was living half a life.

A Lie

“Your parents know everything and what they say is always right.”

Maybe if you’re lucky enough to have mentally healthy parents this lie could be true, although no one is perfect. But for many of us, growing up in abusive homes, we believe, as children, that our parents are right. If they say, our voice hurts their ears, then we believe it and stop singing. If they call us stupid, we believe it and drop out of school.

A Bonus Truth

Adults don’t know everything. No one does. You have inner wisdom. It’s a gift that gets trampled sometimes, but it’s there. See if you can get quiet and listen to it. My inner wisdom has been guiding me to lead an authentic life, and that includes throwing paint on stuff.

Featured Artist

See? Dreams do come true if you put in the work and never give up!

Art Therapy

The most important art is the art you make for yourself.

This section of the gallery is for anyone needing some inspiration, healing, growth, strength. A shoulder to cry on. A connection. To see that life is hard for all of us. That we all suffer. We all struggle. The most beautiful thing you can do is to keep breathing.

The following art is a peek into my own journey of trauma recovery. I might be a mental health expert now, but I began as an abused, scared, and silenced little girl. Art gave me a vehicle to make space from the terror and process pieces that were crumbling.

My Process: On the floor, kneeling before the divine, letting it flow through me. Fearless. Curious. Grateful.

Making this, sitting on my knees, I literally ripped page after page from a damaged dictionary. The words on each page seemed like oracle cards: failure, fighter, disobedient…the act of crumpling them up and dipping them into a mixture of glue and red and black ink was cathartic. At the time, I hadn’t planned on ever showing anyone this piece. It was before #metoo, back when I felt very much alone in the trauma I had survived at three, and then again from ages four through seven at the hands of a trusted, family friend. Over the years, that wound festered. I needed to reclaim my power. I needed to be seen. This is how I let them out. I’d say my art therapy healing journey began with this piece in 2014.

Shortly after painting Winter, I folded and balled up some waxed paper and aluminum foil and assembled this girl exploding out of a volcano. To be honest, I don’t think it’s a good piece of art, but that wasn’t the point at the time. What I needed was a way to express all those tormented, yucky, and trapped feelings I had been carrying around since I was a little girl. At three, I had been burned, literally, by my mother, and I think I finally just needed to make a statement to myself that I could and would break free.

A year later, I had an impulse to make another painting. Once again on my knees, I had no idea what I would make as my fingers were scraping through the paint, but eventually, this tree appeared. Since my first creation was called Winter, I felt that this should be named Autumn. It gave me the idea that I could depict different seasons in my life. I was feeling braver, a little more worthy of the cost of a canvas. These were big pieces after all. Proper canvases that real artists used. At the time I didn’t consider myself a real artist. I was quite simply a desperate girl who needed a place to put her feelings. Feelings that weren’t welcome to talk about with the general population at work or dinner parties. As soon as the paint dried, I knew I had to make Spring and Summer. But again, I had no idea what they would look like.

If I never thought I’d be sharing my art before, I definitely NEVER thought I’d share this one. I mean, look at it. All those scratch-offs and just willy-nilly writing everywhere? Um, terrible. But I had been killing myself trying to be perfect to overcompensate from all the garbage that had happened to me. So I kind of just took a deep breath and said, Hey, I don’t have to be perfect to be loved? I ended that sentence with a question mark because I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to test that theory.

This piece was the first one I actually planned out prior to getting on my knees in my office. I knew I had to do another tree and I knew I wanted it to feel happy and hopeful. I wanted it to reflect all that could be possible in my life. I also found it interesting that the order of these paintings didn’t follow the actual seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. For me, it had to follow the seasons of my life and that order was Cold and Bitter Winter, Changing Autumn, New Growth Poking Through Spring, and Happy and Hopeful Summer. This was the first painting I did that I actually kind of liked.

I really like the idea of using found objects to make art. I had some waxed-paper and a few loose Scrabble tiles and even though I had no idea what I was making when I approached this canvas, I was following a feeling in my heart. And that’s when I realized what’s truly at my core. Probably what’s truly at everyone’s core. The Beatles were right, “All you need is love.”

Art Transformations

While I was tinkering away with art, I was also very seriously slogging away at my dream of becoming an author. Books had been my best friends growing up and I had so many stories I wanted to share with the world. You can read more about my writing journey under the Story Tab. By 2017, I was living that writer life. Getting rejections with personal comments about my work. It was thrilling! But by about the 50th, 100th, 150th “No,” I needed to take action to cheer myself up. Like any time in my life when someone has told me I wouldn’t be able to do something, it just makes me work that much harder to prove them wrong.

Here is a great example of Creative Resilience. I earned 199 rejections for a young adult manuscript I had written based on my childhood. I took those rejection letters and turned them into this piece of art that literally turned those No’s into a YES! The 200th query resulted in a contract with a literary agent!

In this piece, I had been pursuing publication seriously for four years. This work helped me release some of my feelings over the long wait to reach my dream of becoming a published author. It will be worth the wait.

Now, I’m a happy and whole mixed-media artist, taking commissions from clients who connect with my work, as well as a proud member and regular exhibitor at my local gallery, the South Lake Art League.

I love turning trash into something beautiful. The best materials are reusable ones. That’s why I like to work with found objects like net bags from produce, damaged books, newsprint, pencil sharpener shavings, waxed paper, and of course, paint and glue.

And let’s not forget my favorite—GLITTER!

You were meant to SPARKLE, baby! Throw some glitter on it!

Today, I’m feeling quite solid. I’M NOT AFRAID TO GET LOUD! Wherever you find yourself in your journey through Earth, I hope you know that you deserve safety, health, and happiness. But here’s the rub…you have to get it for yourself. You have to be your own hero. Because rescues only happen in fairy tales and old Disney movies, I think.

I used to think I wasn’t good enough to make art. I can’t draw and didn’t study painting (unless you count art class in my Italian middle school). I’m happy to share with you that I was swallowing a lie that many of us digest, much to our upset stomachs–that art is only for the most talented, the most revered. That’s crap. Art is for everyone!

You can make art with ANYTHING! The backs of cereal boxes make great, free canvases. You can tape or glue anything to them, color them, or crumple them up and sculpt with them. Next time you’re wrapping up a sandwich? Ball up that wax paper or plastic wrap and use it as a paint brush to apply paint or any staining liquid (beet juice works great!), or use that wad as clay and form it into a shape that pleases or inspires you. I like to make hearts, flowers, and animals. I’ve even made a family of elephants from waxed paper that I dipped in pencil shavings, glue, and gray paints.

No materials were purchased to make any of my pieces except for the canvas they are mounted on, glue, and paint. In this way, creativity is defined by using what you already have.

Long story short: Art is anything you enjoy making. Or anything that allows you to express an emotion that you don’t want to carry in your body anymore. Art is liberation. That’s Creative Resilience.

What do you want to be free from?

Hold that thought and let your hands do the rest. Then take a picture and show me what you made on my Instagram page! I’d love to see what liberates you. Talk to me @byToriKelley

Environmental Awareness and Art

After swimming with endangered sea turtles in Hawaii, and seeing the species struggle in my home state of Florida, I decided to create Gordon, the Endangered Sea Turtle as a mixed media artwork designed to raise awareness about the impact of trash on our oceans and marine life. Gordon’s shell is waxed paper painted with acrylics, alcohol inks, and glitter. His head, tail and fins are post-consumer latex gloves, and his stomach is made from packing paper. I’m hoping this piece will ask the viewer to consider their own participation in reducing consumerism, and recycling materials. Before buying something, ask yourself if you really need it. Before throwing something away, consider if it can be reused for something else, or at the very least, recycled. It’s my hope that Gordon will remind us to recycle and keep the oceans clean for generations to come.

The state of our planet is both breathtaking and heartbreaking. Many beloved animals are under attack by our own comportment. I sculpted this baby elephant from post-consumer packing paper. She represents all the potential of new birth in the face of real challenge. The figure is unstable, bearing insurmountable weight on only three legs and stripped of its ivory tusks. We take what we want because we can. But does that mean we should? It’s been a long night for elephants, but if we work together, we could create a new dawn.

Help the Elephants by becoming a sponsor or making a donation to the International Elephant Foundation.

Post-consumer pieces of waxed paper, latex gloves and broken fairy-light wires bring this artwork to life as the butterfly boings around on its wired-spring, emerging from its surgeon’s glove cocoon nestled deep into rolled waxed-paper reeds, sprinkled with acrylic paint and alcohol ink. This piece shows the potential of creating something new by harnessing the power of something old. It’s my desire to showcase all the beauty and hope that nature encompasses, emphasizing its worthiness of our efforts to responsibly protect it.

Would you like a custom-made bulletin board like the one above? Email me for Art Commissions. [email protected]

Award-Winning Artist

And I’m a very happy art instructor. I love teaching mixed-media art! https://southlakeartleague.com/classes/

For more of my work, please visit me on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/bytorikelley/