If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the hands are it´s mirror.Historically, society has not encouraged women to vocalize our deepest thoughts, feelings and needs... so
we find expression via our hands, whether holding a pen, paintbrush, chisel, frying pan, vacuum cleaner, wine glass or razor blade.
When a dear friend was a teenager in the 1960´s she was considered
"unmanageable" (because she dared to speak her mind) and placed in a mental institution. While she was there she became friends with Mary (not her real name), another "patient". According
to my friend (who is also a very gifted artist), Mary was an extraordinary painter, and very angry at how she´d been betrayed by her husband.
This is Mary's story.
"I don't belong here, you know; I'm not
mentally ill, I am an Artist. I used to be a happy, fulfilled person; I laughed, I loved, I lived, I created things of beauty... but when I fell in love and got married, everything changed.
When we were first
married my husband was proud of my art, but when I got pregnant we decided that I would put my painting "on hold" until our children started school... so I did. I really missed my art while my children
were small, but my children really needed my undivided attention while they were small.
After they began school I immediately resumed my painting... and was truly happy again. My Art is my emotional outlet, my
way of expressing those inner feelings that defy mere words. It was really hard to manage without it while the children were little.
Before the children came my husband was supportive of my need to paint, but
things were very different this time. He would get upset when dinner wasn't always waiting when he got home, the house wasn't always spotless, and his wife wasn't always gussied up and waiting for him when he
walked in the door. He resented the time I spent painting, and the unavoidable mess it created. Eventually, he ordered me to stop painting. I refused, and my insistence upon following my heart enraged
him. He could not abide "having" a wife who would not obey and give up my dreams for his... so he had me Committed. My "crime"? I was an "Unhappy Housewife", and that was
enough.
That's my story; I'm here because I have a mind of my own. It's not so bad here though; at least they let me paint. As long as I can do that, I can survive almost anything."
Because Mary
refused to stop painting and accept her "lot in life" her husband and father both signed the order to have her lobotomized. Nobody told her; she discovered the betrayal as she was being wheeled into
surgery. Afterwards, she simply was not "there" anymore. She told my friend, on the day she left the hospital after being pronounced "cured" and discharged:
