You Were Always There For Me
by Jennifer Carpenter
I can stand in a room full of people and feel completely alone. I have always been like this. The same could be said about my childhood. Or my marriage. My job. I’ve always felt some giant disconnect, as if some invisible obstacle stood between me and everything else. Somehow, I needed that buffer, real or imagined, between “me” and “everything else.” Was I broken? Was I weird? How could this possibly be normal? Fast forward: it’s MY normal, and it’s where I thrive.
Still Life Without Mom
I suppose it’s a universal truth that everyone experiences everything in life differently. From our first breath, we form our own reactions to events. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I was born with crayons. My earliest recollection is of my dad working nights and sleeping days. Mom had to come up with creative ways to keep me quiet all day while Dad slept and my siblings were in school. I have no memory of Mom getting on the floor to play with me or drag out a board game. I recall being handed a ceramic tile, ornament, or piggy bank to paint with the bare minimum of colors to work with to create something I was incredibly proud of in silence. Mom was in the same room, but in my creative bubble, there was aloneness. That became the foundation of what continues to serve me well, and I seek it out whenever possible.
I had the unfortunate experience of being exposed to inappropriate events that stole much of my innocence and forced filters upon my existence. I knew things. These things were never talked about, and in reality, I wouldn’t have had words in my vocabulary to relay the information I unwillingly found in my possession. I never came out of my creative bubble after that, and both parents died never knowing the burden I carried as a child in my single digits. Any time something got weird, awkward, or felt unsafe, I retreated mentally, emotionally, and physically—not only in my headspace, but to another room of the house entirely. I changed the subject, as it were. I took the focus off the inappropriate joke and would wow somebody with my latest creation. Created in self-imposed silent isolation.
Neither Here Nor There
In school, my talent was my armor. I was bullied beyond anyone’s knowledge. The guilty knew only of their torment but weren’t aware the same or similar awaited me around every corner, every day. I was in a perpetual state of exhaustion from constantly being beaten down and unaccepted. With a talent for drawing, there was one part of me that was untouchable! Drawing made me the unicorn of my class, in a good way, and that served me well throughout my college career and into adulthood. By then, isolation and creation came naturally. It wasn’t a choice anymore. It was all I knew.
“I created my first thing of beauty
out of the wreckage of my life.”
Each time I retreated, I took a ton of baggage along with me, as if it might serve some purpose one day. Soon it became too much to sort through, and, as if leaking from a pinprick of a hole, it found its way into my art—and THERE it found purpose. The first piece was “Still Life Without Mom.” I created it in the weeks following my mother’s death. I was already going through a divorce, and my resources to handle anything else were seemingly non-existent. And then it came to me. I created my first thing of beauty out of the wreckage of my life, and it was in the silence of the wee hours of the morning that I was able to grieve the loss of my mother—not in a manner publicly, but alone, in the most sincere, raw gesture I could muster. It sold to a stranger in a park at its first show. It won awards. It got featured in The Artist’s Magazine. It opened doors and invited me to step outside my bubble.
Once Upon A Time
The next turned-down page in my journey of grief came with “Neither Here Nor There.” The visual came to me in the final hours of my dad’s life. Because I was unable to express my feelings in words, words and feelings now automatically translated into imagery. Everything I was feeling, everything I was seeing, it all came together into a drawing that says way more than I could have expressed otherwise. And again, I was alone in the silence that the anticipation of that last goodbye presented.
My biggest personal accomplishment came with “One Upon A Time.” In that, I took years—DECADES—of silence and spewed forth the most intense, guttural purge of thought, feeling, imagery; an exorcism of sorts. I took all that silence and made it LOUD! I got it out of me and onto paper, in LIVING color. It was no longer IN me, controlling me, diminishing my worth. It’s not pretty. It won’t win awards. It may not ever sell. And that’s ok. It untethered me, made room for good within my living Self. To my surprise, it speaks to many people. It has made people cry without ever hearing an explanation for anything. It has made people feel SOMEthing unpleasant, sad, or sinister. It’s one thing to comprehend at age 60; it’s another to experience at age 6. For the full experience, tell Alexa to play “Matilda” by Harry Styles as you look deeply into the piece. That chaos is the filter through which I viewed life, but it is art that embraced me and carried me through every obstacle.
Jennifer Carpenter:
Jennifer lives in Virginia and has over 45 years of experience using colored pencil. Her awards range from local to international, and she has had work published in numerous colored pencil books, magazines, and articles. She currently works from her basement studio in her Christiansburg home, which she shares with her husband, two dogs, and three cats.
Facebook: JPCarpenterArt