Devonne Brown

I can’t hold hands or a paintbrush with a clenched fist. I can barely hold a pen with one, let alone write or sing a song while I grind my teeth. I gotta lighten up. This isn’t Russia, and I  don’t have to practice transcendental meditation to create masterworks, maybe I do.

J.M.W.Turner swears that, ”It’s only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.” The trauma response teams and experts would agree with him or her. Fear freezes us. We get the deer caught in the headlight syndrome and can’t move or think. We just operate to survive. To create we have to let go of fear, says Turner. 

Channeling fear is a fair trade for creation. Compartmentalize fear. Block off bits to allow at least some rays of creativity to flow. That’s how some scaredy-cat folk survive. Creativity helps me overcome fear, but I didn’t grow up oppressed in Russia either. 

Some of the best art in the world comes from fear, from oppression, from within the tortured mind. Some of the worst art in the world comes from my tortured paintbrushes when I paint rocks as a last resort to straighten out my psyche.

 Over the years I’ve noticed a pattern. I paint when I feel the worst. Fearful, depressed, oppressed, tortured in mind and spirit. Then call upon my muse to paint rocks. Sometimes I’ll phone a friend to join me. 

When I create, I let go of the fear, I let go of everything.