MS Expressed Through Art

MS Expressed Through Art   Art inspires people and allows us to share our emotions and experiences in a unique way. Our amazing guest blogger, Janelle Logan, shares with us...

MS Expressed Through Art

 

Art inspires people and allows us to share our emotions and experiences in a unique way. Our amazing guest blogger, Janelle Logan, shares with us a power piece of art that embodies her emotions and experiences of her MS diagnosis and journey:

I recently commissioned an artist to create an original piece of art for me, something I had never done before. I was inspired by a piece I saw in her portfolio, and my reaction was purely visceral. The work was titled “Ruin Is the Road to Transformation.” I asked her to create a “ruin” just for me. This is my new art.

To my eye, it represents structure and chaos, darkness and light, frenzy and peace. It has layers of color and texture. It has aspects of dissonance, but taken as a whole, it works in perfect harmony.

Part of the artist’s inspiration for this series was Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. During Gilbert’s tour of Italy, she describes visiting the Augusteum. Originally built as a mausoleum for Octavian Augustus, the site fell into ruins and was subsequently reincarnated as a fortress, a vineyard, a garden, a bullring, a fireworks depository, and a concert hall before once again being returned to ruins. She writes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually
been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes
to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me not to
get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong
to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough – but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always
be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.”

 

When I look at my painting and I think about my MS diagnosis, I have this same reaction. MS is a change that I could not have anticipated. It has shown many of my perceptions to be obsolete. But what resonates most strongly with me is the concept of transformation. MS is a change, true. It is one of many changes in my life that I never expected. But it’s not an end. It’s like the Augusteum – today one thing, tomorrow another. Constantly and endlessly transforming. But enduring nonetheless. Like me.

For more information:
The artist is Laura E. Pentecost. Check out her online portfolio.
Read Janelle’s blog, My Invisible Life, or follow her on Twitter.

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