The Healing Power of Art: My Story of Struggle and Creativity (Part 1)
I’d like to tell you about how I came to art as my purpose, or should I say, how art came to me.
You see, I have grappled with depression and anxiety my whole life. A few weeks after I was born, my father left for India on a 6 week trip, leaving me alone with my mother. I mean, it was a once in a lifetime, all expenses paid, religious education trip for his master’s in Theology, so I would have gone too if I’d been him! My young mother though, on her own with her first baby, did not know how to handle my constant crying. She was also more than likely struggling with post-partum depression. This is not a family secret. In fact, my mom has written a beautiful memoir about it called “The Birds Still Sing”!
But this formative period of my life has always left me wondering.
I don’t know if that’s where my sadness started, or if I was born with it, but it has always been a part of me, and art has been the only way I’ve ever found to express it. Art – visual art, singing, and dancing – is where I have found some sense of communing with a deeper part of myself that is way beyond words.
As most children do, I started scribbling, smearing, drawing, and painting at a young age. I also started singing, making up crazy lyrics in the tub, and performing for whoever would watch! Art also touched me in the form of a movie – one of the first movies I saw in the theatre: The Never Ending Story. I remember being very moved by the creative beauty of the costumes and sets, the emotional soundtrack, the power of the characters’ imaginations, the bravery of Atreyu, the fear in Bastian that caused him to hide away in his school’s attic because he felt so misunderstood. I felt deep parts of myself reflected back to me in what I saw and experienced in that movie. I started wondering if perhaps I were a part of that movie myself!
As a child I never questioned if I should make art, or sing, or act, or dance. I just did it, with the carefree abandon that’s so hard to find once we become adults.
And because I also had skill and managed to sing and draw in a way that pleased adults, I never got told my art wasn’t good enough like so many people get told by some thoughtless adult somewhere along the way. My art was my shield, my activity to get lost in, something I was told I was “good at”, and so I managed to avoid wounding words about my creations. I avoided getting art scars.
However, my mind started fusing my identity with art without my realizing it. This mindset would be a pride and a pain for me along the way to the point where I would eventually stop making art … but that’s another part of my story!
Thanks for reading this part of my story – it’s my honor to share it with you! Be sure to read Part Two to find out what highschool does to my creativity!
If you feel called to share with me, please comment below and tell me: What was your experience with art as a child? Do you have any art scars from wounding words from your childhood?
Hailey Tallman is an Artist and Art Therapist. She graduated from bealart in London, Ontario in 1998 and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University with her BFA in 2003. She went on to get her masters’ in Creative Arts Therapies from Concordia in 2015.
Inspired by her own personal healing through art and art therapy, Hailey created several signature therapeutic art processes that focus on process over product. Her processes help people heal their "art scars" via connection with their inner knowing and open them up to their inherent creativity.
Hailey's artwork is eclectic, from gel and linocut prints, to egg-carton clay sculptures, to paintings featuring collaged maps and napkins. Her colourful artwork often features bikes and social justice issues, pushing it into the category of “artivism” (art + activism). She follows her inner voice as she paints and is in constant dialogue with the colours, patterns, movement and emotions that emerge, both within her and on the canvas.
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