Road to Recovery
We all have injuries; physical, mental, emotional. We all heal eventually and as best we can. Saying something like “I’m on the road to recovery” implies this is a linear journey with an absolute beginning and a finite endpoint. After working my own way down that “road to recovery” following a car accident I realized this wasn’t the case. There is no finish line, no chance of being exactly like I was before the incident. Honestly in most ways I think I’m actually more. I’m better than what and who I was. In some ways however I’m less. I still can’t play piano for any length of time and can’t go to movies. Sensory overload is a real thing for me and I’m hesitant in certain environments. With this piece I wanted to show what that road really is. It’s a rough winding path that never leads to an end point but hopefully allows us to find our new normal. This path isn’t always easy, sometimes the healing process is more difficult than the original issue. Time does heal but that doesn’t mean we’re the same as before. That concept isn’t easy for others to understand at times, mostly because they assume that “recovered” means just that.
I am healed, I’m not the same. For me that’s actually a much better place to be. For others it isn’t.
Birch ply laminate bowl with forced patina and nails. Base is Ipe
21 inches tall and 12 inches wide.
