“The Bone yard” Artist statement
The image shows a woman in Victorian dress (left) and a carriage (right). The carriage contains books, luggage, a mirror, and a globe, as well as a decapitated torso, a head, and arms and legs sticking out from cargo boxes. The carriage is decorated with teeth, radius, and sacrum bones. The woman holds a bouquet of fingers and scapulae. They are bathed in a shimmering green light. Behind them is a rock wall, separating the woman and the carriage from a bleak, black and white landscape that extends far into the distance. The wall, and the ground are all littered with various bones.
I often feel as though I am being haunted by pain. That pain is a creeping specter that follows me everywhere I go, everything I do; and I can’t focus on living, because I have to spend all of my time and energy fighting to keep her from possessing me completely. I have to make sacrifice after sacrifice to stave her off:
“If I meet my friends, I won’t have the energy to make dinner, and I need to eat to take my medication.”
“If I journal with my morning coffee, I won’t be able to sit long enough to work meaningfully, and I need money to pay for healthcare.”
“If I go to that concert, I will have extra pain and exhaustion for days after, and I already have appointments scheduled this week that I can’t miss.” And so it goes.
These are small asks: taking a walk and making dinner, journaling and working, occasionally attending a sitting event without days (or weeks) of consequences. But for those living with chronic illness, these are the choices we face every day, and a lot of the time, it’s just not worth it. Pain strips everything delightful away from me, until all that is left is the bare essentials: eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping. I am left feeling like a corpse, being dragged through life by the cruel and unrelenting Lady of Pain.
This feeling of constant sacrifice is what I attempt to capture in this piece. In the carriage, the viewer can see various items: books, art supplies, luggage, a globe. These are my life’s desires and aspirations: study, art, travel, love, all packed up and gathering dust. I am also in the carriage, my body broken up into pieces and stuffed into various cargo boxes. The viewer can see my head peeking above the lip of a box, my eyes sunken and glazed over, as a final touch. There is a shimmering light that bathes the figures. It is the radiance of life that is just outside my reach. Although its luster is mesmerizing, it barely illuminates the vast, bleak landscape the subjects occupy. Lady Pain stands unmoving between the viewer and the carriage, a pained expression beneath her veil. She is a victim, and a captor. In her hand, she holds a bouquet of fingers and scapula bones. These represent the parts of myself that I have ripped off to placate her.
Chronic pain is a grotesque, horrifying parade of ever changing challenges and sacrifice. However, it’s important to recognize that many of the exchanges we make for relief are not inherently necessary. True, many of these challenges are innate to our bodies, but just as many come from the ways in which we are forced to choose because (in the United States) we do not have the social support to live fulfilling lives. If we had food programs, universal healthcare, accessible careers, affordable housing, and supplementary income, we wouldn't have to keep ripping out parts of ourselves just to stay alive.
This piece is not a happy one, but I am not hopeless. One of the many things I find deeply inspiring about the disabled community is our audacity to find joy, even when we feel so low. I do find myself feeling trapped by pain, but I don’t accept her as my mistress. In the image, my head is turned, my gaze focused on something just off-canvas. It is turned towards the radiant light that brightens even my dark little carriage. In some way, this piece is a record: a moment when I was feeling dismembered and defeated, and I still chose to look towards the luster.
