The Labor Of Rebirth By C-Section

"THE LABOR OF REBIRTH BY C-SECTION" ©2001 Jeni Fitts

This was done when I was about 25-26 years old. I was coming to terms with life and death and mental illness. The life I'd lived up to that point was shrouded and hidden away deep inside, even from myself. Many of those parts of me are still hidden today...I'd been in counseling for five years back then. Loved ones were dead too soon, others were in the process of dying...I was stuck in my home making paintings and felt ignored, as though the world didn't even know I existed...so I went through a rebirth of sorts. Everything held inside, all the darkness had to come out. Immediately. I was a person that had to change fundamentally. Between 1999-2001 I did, and it was the most grueling, painful "rebirth" I've yet gone through. All secrets and deeds, all thoughts and anger never expressed - but ignored and stuffed away - all had to come out at once. I've never been a mother, but that's what I imagined giving birth must feel like...although only if the mother is fully awake and unanesthetized during a Caeserian. All that came out from inside me then is gone, but there are always other things growing within like cancer that have to be purged emotionally by artistic means. This painting is an expression of what it felt like to be split open and exorcised. It'll happen again and again. That's just life. You can't heal by ignoring your pain, that will only last for a while. If you do, it will come back when you least expect or are least equipped to deal with it and it's possible to have it knock you down dead. That almost happened to me at age 20. I've seen it happen to others. Whatever your medium (painting/drawing, music, film, writing, praying, anything), use it to your advantage when you can. It can be done! You can survive near-death and come back with a vengeance. That cliché which says "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is true, but only if you act on it. Not if you just sit there and let it eat you alive. It's your decision! It's worth it...from caterpillar to coccoon to butterfly. It'll be ugly at first, but when it's done you can rest, and become that much closer to freedom.

Slow To Anger

SLOW TO ANGER ©Jeni Fitts 2002

I painted this 12 years ago to describe how I felt being on too many medications for my health. I could think rationally and was painting all the time, but everything was at such a slow pace due to the meds. Speech was slowed, movement was slowed, and I was tired all the time. And angry. Mainly at all the "extra" medications I'd been prescribed that I really didn't need (not to say that I didn't need the primary meds, I did. But there were too many others added that did the same as the primary ones...I had a duplicate for every original prescription), and the doctor who made me take them. I was also in a clinical depression that - by definition - literally slows you down anyway. I didn't need all the extra baggage! It was a fight just to get anything done, even just around the house. To do the dishes, turn on a TV. To get out of my bed! And I was stuck here, the house was my entire world. And I hated it. So this is one of the responses I had to all of it - this painting. Slow to anger. Slow to speak, slow to move, slow to react, feeling frozen and unable to move around...like a cold zombie struggling to stand up. But angry, still...and once this zombie finally stands, get the hell out of the way. The mind was/is still sharp as a tack. The cold rigor mortis of the body was doctor-induced. But now I can finally move, and I feel better every day. This painting is of a time that has ended, mercifully. 

Her Rage Drained Her Like A Vampire

"Her Rage Drained Her Like A Vampire" ©2002 Jeni Fitts

Suicide. Again. Maybe I'm not so different from you, that maybe you have known someone who has died by their own hand...maybe it was you who attempted it and survived. Maybe you've just thought about it fleetingly. For my aunt whom I love, she was successful. And it was made possible - for her and for many others - not only out of depression or desperation, but by the anger and pent-up rage that has no outlet. That's what it was for me in 1994, when I tried to die. I never spoke to anyone about anything ever, and all the rage from my broken brain (because I was legitimately mentally ill) and my broken heart and - finally - broken dreams after I was forced to quit college because of my frequent panic attacks in class, I decided "That's it. Final straw." For me and most other people rage was a factor. It claws and gnaws at you all the time, even in sleep! My nightmares then were proof of it. And so much displaced rage. I've heard the phrase "Depression is rage turned inward, against yourself", and I agree. It's a life-sucking, blood drinking vampire. The difference is the choice before you. When you get to that point, do you let your anger kill you - or do you finally open up to someone and start talking so that it lessens? For me, I opened up, and I lived. For my aunt, she did not, and died. You have to be a willing victim and accomplice to that "vampire" in order for it to drain you. And yeah, there's a choice. There's ALWAYS a choice. Don't play the victim. Live.

Breakthroughs Don't Come Easy!

And that's exactly what this painting is about, breakthroughs. I did this in 2004 during a deep, dark, clinical depression that lasted most of the year. I was trying to get free of it, it wasn't working. Eventually I did! And this is how it felt...gray, dark, like the line in a U2 song ("Until The End Of The World") - "I was drowning in sorrows, but my sorrows - they learned to swim..." My own sorrows were pulling me down, my demons came for me. Still, I got free. It took a long time and I've had to do it again and again. Breakthroughs don't come easy. But they do come! You have to fight for it.

How to Really Screw Up A Painting... A Second Time! (Update/New Finished Painting)

When I last left off on this painting, it looked like this.

But nope, I wasn't intending to go this way. It looks less human, less female, and too yellowy for my taste. It no longer fits the emotion I started with. Instead, it's turning into a sort of zombie-like monster (which isn't bad at all, but still not what I was going for). My original intention was more like this (and if you've been here before, you should recognize it)...

...a projection of myself, blinded by fear. Hence the title (you guessed it!): Blinded By Fear. But since there is no longer any physical painting of this version, I'll be selling it as a print only. As far as the current zombie version...I will finish it, but it will be quite different. Monstrous!

Why Did You Leave Me?

This one is ooooooooooooooooold! From 1999. Apparently I have abandonment issues...in 1999 I really tried to take the bull by the horns. Attack the pain, destroy everything. Like the Meshuggah album, "Destroy, Erase, Improve." This is pain. This is therapy. Art heals.