In the beginning there was a fox and A dragonfly
This illustration was the very first mosaic / stained glass inspired artwork I created. It represents my partner Sock (the dragonfly) and myself (the fox).
I believe I drew this in early 2019, a time where I was feeling very broken. I didn’t yet understand that I have a dissociative disorder.
I was dis-regulated, acting on pure fight and flight and other trauma responses I learned surviving my childhood. I was putting tremendous strain on our relationship. I was totally out of control and I didn’t even realize I was hurting all the people I held dear to my heart.
Something deep within, however, wanted to create this image I could feel in my soul. Drawing this illustration was a way to convey that my dragonfly, my soulmate Sock, was someone I see with uttermost beauty. It helped me express that I could see us free, as fox and dragonfly were, to frolic in nature. I wanted to make something beautiful out of the broken peices of my being that I could feel laying shattered around me.
I needed a way to make us whole again.
Back then I didn’t draw, but I tried my best and while I did think my creation was cute I wished that one day I would either have the tools to redraw it digitally or that I would gain the skills so that I could do the vision justice.
Fast forward a few years. I did a lot of self discovery and healing determined to stop hurting those who were around me. I started using art as a means to self sooth and attempt to regulate my emotions.
I even had a breakthrough moment making some art in a fit of anger I had towards one of my abusers and I was able to bust straight though a block I had around making art or becoming an artist.
I decided that I wanted to share all of it, my healing journey, how I use art to aid me in said healing journey and to encourage others artist or non artistic people that art heals and they can use it too.
I started sharing my journey at the very end of 2020 and I gained small bursts of momentum. Everything was raw, but it was authentic.
I started meeting other artists and one of them in particular changed my life in all the right ways. A sister flame, a platonic soulmate, Casey H Wilkinson, a digital illustrator.
She gave me the right gentle nudge and encouragement I needed to jump off a terrifying ledge to get a tablet and eventually pursue my own path towards becoming an illustrator, a dream I had had since childhood.
It was scary but I did it and one of the first things I did was redraw that old picture of a fox and dragonfly and it opened a flood gate. I drew another of an otter, once again a tribute to my beloved partner Sock. A narwhal followed simply for my own amusement and then next came a sloth, another tribute but for my sister flame Casey whom adores them so.
Not even a year after I drew those first mosaic animals I found myself embarking on a project to create a coloring book / work book hybrid centered around these mosaic animals.
I am still currently working on this project, in the writing phase!
Who knew that a drawing I made over 5 years ago would utterly change my life?
Art truly does heal!
