A Retreat into my Embroidered Canvas
Li June Han, MA, AThR
Singapore
Recently I have been feeling the need to retreat.
The world seems to have taken on a strange glow, an odd appearance. It seems surreal the way our lives hang in the balance while uncertainty raids through every corner of our lives. Jobs are deferred, trips are derailed, and movements are restricted. Behaviours are scrutinized in detail as we try to make sense of how we ought to behave. This unexpected dissonance of quiet, yet intense glare is unnerving. The silence of waiting is pregnant with irony, tinged with hope, with a touch of Armageddon. How does one hold these feelings, percolating just below the surface, without bits oozing out from hiding? As an art therapist, I also work to contain the emotions of my clients, all trying to surmount our own fears in these unusual and unprecedented times.
Snow, embroidery on canvas, 6x6”
It is fortunate that I have a safe place to go, where repetitiveness amidst uncertainty yields beauty and hope, and not anxiety. Right in the cradle of my stitches on a canvas, tension is alleviated while a narrative grows with each stitch, weaving my story (Garlock, 2016). As I stitch, always without a plan, led only by the chaotic movements of my hand, I create a guiding picture from my unconscious. Mesmerised by the needle making holes up and down, threads going in and out, sublimation comes into sight as an imagery emerges, providing a view into my soul (Steinhardt, 2017). On my embroidered canvas, trees sprout without leaves, snow falls and covers the scene. Where am I, in this snowy place, in stark contrast to the sunny tropics of Singapore where I live? I finally understand. I am already in retreat, in fact my soul is in hibernation! By instinct. For a time of repose, contemplation, rest and renewal. Slowed down breathing, reduced heart rate, conserving energy, for soul food has become scarce in these times. The preceding years of self-compassion and shoring up of inner strengths, hopefully, have prepared me with fuel for this famine. Famine from my beloved ordinariness of life, predictability of rhythm and warmth of human company. The canvas contains and informs. I hope when I emerge from twilight, spring will be here. But for now, I am happy and blessed to be in retreat, in hibernation.
Poetic response to artwork:
In Hibernation…
The noise deafens
piercing glares expose
what lies within
mangled relics deposed
The snow covers
whiteness descends
we create shelter
what lies within
warmth, calm fire sputters
Nourishing rest, at twilight
sooths the soul, burns the woes
safe in the shelter
the door shutters
Ashes kindle, tinkling toes
the soul slumbers
in a secreted shelter
till spring… perhaps
when birds aflutter
The noise deafens,
piercing glares expose
what lies within;
vintage treasures reposed
References
Garlock, L.R. (2016). Stories in the cloth: Art therapy and narrative textiles. Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 33(2), 58-66.
Steinhardt, L. (2017). From dot to line to plane: Constellating unconscious imagery in art therapy, Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 34(4), 159-166.