How Art Heals-WEB

51 22. Gwyned Trefethen WWW.GWNEDTREFETHEN.COM MASSACHUSETTS, USA For her piece Insomnia , Gwyned used the imagery she’d seen on countless sleepless nights during a period in which she and her oldest child were in conf lict. “I was thinking of the headlight beams that played across my bedroom ceiling, and the jagged angles of the cathedral roof I could see from my window as I strained to fall asleep.” At the time she made Insomnia , Gwyned’s children were on their own for the first time and she was looking forward to devoting herself to art. “Instead, the difficult time with my child was tearing me apart. It was a period of prolific creativity, but that creativity focused, for the most part, on my emotional struggle. “The act of cutting, stitching, and watching the image appear was both soothing and exhilarating. It’s not something I can tap into; it is more a matter of letting go, never knowing where the process will lead me. It’s as though my artwork is a science experiment in that I begin with a question or a hypothesis, then I do the work and see what happens.” My typical reaction upon completing a piece is to see its f laws and to feel discouraged. It is only after months, or even years, that I can take a more objective look. Then I often feel incredulity that I actually created such powerful work.