Self Healing

How sleep heals us, emotionally and physically. This work emerges from the place where my two practices meet: as a painter and as a deep tissue massage therapist working with physical performers, artists, and people carrying the history of their bodies.

Jodie asked to be painted as part of an ongoing process of healing and trust. It was a beautiful and mutually beneficial process, and I love the resulting painting. As she rolled through sleep, her hands seemed to keep returning to gestures of holding, protecting, and reassuring herself.

In the painting Jodie is dreaming in the section of the Milky Way that was directly above her when she was born. For me it is akin to returning to the original pattern, the moment of birth and the flight of dreams. Her self-healing hands appear and disappear as you walk around the canvas; the pattern changes and she seems to breathe.

Four and a half years into the Sleep series, this painting felt like a new connection between deep human emotion and nebulous celestial form. I am grateful that Jodie wanted to work with me, and grateful that both of my arts could meet in the one image.