painful experience/promising art

When my younger daughter began a college drawing class this fall, the instructor, who is also a brilliant painter, told the students that he believes artists should be discouraged at all costs. Even so, noting my daughter’s passion for art, he began helping her refine her raw talent—before discouragement came to her in a nearly fatal form.

A few weeks ago, on the back of a friend’s motorcycle, my daughter enjoyed flying over a country highway, the wind in her face. Then, she and her friend were struck by a car, and suddenly they were both sailing through the air in quite a different way. Both survived, each with a broken right leg. My daughter, the right-handed artist, also broke her right arm and shoulder. Months of physical and occupational therapy lie ahead. Breaking a sweat while swirling a brush at the easel is a distant goal.

During the weeks I’ve spent with my daughter in the hospital, my motherly self wished to draw her pain away into my own body, to spare her all suffering. But my writer/artist self watched in awe as she moved beyond the agony of her injuries into the early stages of recovery. I know the terror of the accident will outlast the cuts and bruises and the broken bones, and I can’t spare her the awful memories and nightmares. I can only reassure her that her feelings belong to her—they are her material, as real as pencil and paper, paint and canvas. Through the nights she and I have talked of that terror, I’ve glimpsed what she may do with it, make from it. Though aching and discouraged, she is still compelled by art.

Some people say things happen for a reason. Maybe things happen, and we find a reason, create a pattern from chaos. I live in hope of experiencing what this wounded, wonderful young woman will create.

Rosemary Poole-Carter