Art Became My Therapy When Life Kicked Me in the Teeth

Christine Vann, MSc.
4 min readMay 11, 2022

Or how your mind can heal when you immerse it.

Image source by Depositpohotos.com

Filing away stubborn corners in my sculpture, I came to terms with a thunderbolt that had cracked my life wide open.

Obsessing over extracting the right shape out of an unwieldy soapstone block taught me about creating a new life from the smoky embers of my old one.

This article responds to the May prompt collaboration featuring Yana Bostongirl and David Perlmutter.

“Art is coming face to face with yourself.” — Jackson Pollock

In my late twenties, I thought my life was sorted — the way society expects of a young woman.

My new job was stimulating. I had fun-loving mates and co-owned a light-filled apartment with my boyfriend. The duplex boasted a small roof terrace, just big enough to accommodate two friends and a large bottle of something fizzy.

Then one Mayday, a long day had merged into a stifling commute, and something happened. A news story about a missing local young woman and her daughters had everyone on edge. The atmosphere seemed charged that day — a foreboding of what was to come?

Still, it was Friday and I had a long weekend ahead. But my cheerful mood evaporated after I had turned the key. Immersed in work, I…

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