Speaking Through Clay
Today, we welcome Steevie Jane Parks, the first member of our Thriving Creative community to share her story! If you would like to write for the Thriving Creative, click here for guidelines. I’d love to share your tale, too!
The telephone rang just as I started to put on my stockings to go to work. It was my father calling from New York. ‘Mom is dying, and you’ll need to catch the next plane to get here before it’s too late’. It was around six thirty on the Monday morning after Thanksgiving, 2006. We live in a small town in North Carolina, and had gotten home late the night before. My ten year old son was peacefully sleeping in his room upstairs, and my husband had just started making coffee.
If I was going to get to there in time to say goodbye to my mother, I needed to get busy fast. I knew exactly what I had to do, and how to do it, but my mind and body suddenly felt disconnected. After a few minutes had gone by, I realized that I was compulsively walking around and around in our tiny kitchen as if driven by a motor. I needed to get in touch with what I was feeling, no matter how painful, and the only way to do that was to stop pacing and let whatever emotions were going to happen, happen. Only, I couldn’t do it.
As a Clinical Psychologist for many years, I often used art therapy exercises when my clients felt too emotionally overwhelmed to use words. Maybe this would work for me? I asked my husband to run down to the basement to get me a large ball of ‘Sculpy’ (a type of plastic modeling clay often used to make holiday decorations). Then I asked him to put on ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ by Cat Stevens, took the modeling clay into my hands, and closed my eyes.
At first the Sculpy felt cold and hard, but gradually softened with the warmth and constant pressure of my fingers, until the familiar ‘children’s plastic toy’ aroma of the Sculpy filled the air. As soon as the song ‘How Can I Tell You that I Love You’ started to play, a steady stream of hot tears ran down both cheeks as the clay slowly took on a shape that felt right in my hands. After several minutes, I opened my eyes to see what my unconscious mind had created.
It looked like ‘an empty pelvis’. It made me feel sad and elated at the same time. I felt elated because the sculpture made me realize that I was now free to be my true self, and could focus on what I really wanted out of life, without worrying about how it might affect anyone else.
It suddenly became clear that my decision to become a Clinical Psychologist in my twenties was motivated by my wish to become like my mother so that I could make her proud of me. As a child and young adult, I loved painting more than anything in the world. But I made myself stop in my early 20’s so that I could focus on my career. The very first thing that I said to my husband after seeing the sculpture was ‘Jeff, I think I’m ready to become an Artist again’.
Over the course of the next fifteen years, I gradually retired from practicing psychology and slowly allowed myself to become ‘reborn as an artist’. This evolution was made possible in part, by an experience between me and a ball of clay.
Dr. Steevie Jane Parks is a retired Clinical Psychologist (and Certified Creativity Coach), who became both a professional visual artist and a voice actress later in life. She lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina with her husband Jeff. She loves to swim and regularly organizes art retreats on the coast of North Carolina for fellow creatives. You can find more about her art and teaching at SteevieJaneParks.com.
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Happy Explorations!
LA
Do you want to create something but don’t know where to start? Perhaps you just want to connect to your creative side again. Or maybe you just need some fresh eyes on your writing!
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I like this a lot, for so many reasons.