We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Monica Doreen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Monica, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I create artwork that has an impact in another’s life, or is meaningful in the healing of myself or others. “Looking Up” Wellness is a project that supplies theraputic glow-in-the-dark skylight paintings to be placed over hospital/hospice beds to aid in healing.
My “Looking In” Series is where I paint intuitively and use art therapy techniques to heal myself and process the world around me. Often these works glow in the dark as well.
I am also happy to create family portraits, pet portraits, or portraits of a place/landscape important to another. I enjoy using my gifts to depict anything close to another’s heart. I enjoy the lasting affect these works have on another.
Monica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I was holding my dad’s hand in hospice when I realized he really had nothing to look at but a cold white drop-ceiling. He wasn’t able to see anything but what was right above him. The day he passed it was right around sunset, and it was the most majestic sunset that day in Kentucky. Shortly after, I was driving back from Nevada to Santa Fe, New Mexico and became enveloped by the magnificent sunset I witnessed. It was like a sentence was inserted into my brain without my doing; some people may call this intuition, a vision, or something divine. The sentence was: You will make beautiful skylight paintings, and they will go on the ceilings. Could this have been my dad’s message? Looking Up Wellness is now the outcome, my business that provides therapeutic paintings to place above patient beds in hospice, hospitals, or at home. The oil paintings mimic skylights and are inspired by my own photographs I take straight up into Santa Fe skies. The act of looking straight up reminded me how to stay present in the here in now, instead of focusing on my dad’s passing (which I struggled with terribly). I work from the photographs, expanding them with more vibrant colors and metallic powders and glitters, to depict a magical feeling. From here, I add the night time glow-in-the-dark layer that is clear in the day, but emerges at night when the lights are out, depicting the night skies. These paintings are available to be viewed by those who are recovering 24/7. There is always an “energetic companion” with the patient, so to speak. The first paintings I made were my own art therapy process, to learn how to remain in the present, and metabolize the heavy grief. Looking up takes one into the present moment , rather than looking into the past (depression) or looking into the future (anxiety). Try it, just look straight up.
It wasn’t difficult finding research to support the effectiveness of these paintings in the healing process. The large body of research out there on art in hospitals only motivated my efforts more to move forward. Research and many experiments have shown that the presence of art in hospitals reduces patient depression and anxiety levels, and they actually need lass pain medication and experience less suffering than those without artwork present. The patient feels more safe, and therefore their nervous system is calm, which allows the body to heal quicker. One study showed that humans naturally stood by hand painted artworks in a room where they were asked to meet new people, suggesting that the hand painted artworks provided this sense of safety. Energetic studies of artwork support the law of conservation; energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transfered from one form to another. The energy and intention behind the hand painted art is also important, and I hold an intention of peace and serenity while painting these works. A digital printed work would not hold this same energy. Additionally, the artworks offer an opportunity for family/friends to bond with the patient, serving as a talking point and shared experience. The painting can stand as a representation for the patient’s triumph in recovery and healing. If the paintings are above a bed in hospice, it can also be an image the family can cherish, standing as a memory for their loved one. I would have loved to take home a painting that my dad viewed in his last days. As a bonus, the presence of artwork in hospitals also improves staff morale, which can intern improve the quality of care in any hospital, long term care, or recovery setting. Studies on the brain while looking at artwork show that viewing art gives the same pleasure as being in love.
Artwork in hospitals isn’t new, but hand painted energetic artwork above beds that are able to be viewed all hours of the day, is revolutionary. These paintings merge metaphysics, fine art, and healing into a unique category of Wellness Art. The skies are relatable and able to be enjoyed by all people, transcending race, socioeconomic status, religion, age, gender, and culture. I am most proud that I found the courage to listen to that message I received about these works, and that the creation of the works can be so valuable to patients and also family members and friends. I always felt gallery work wasn’t for me as an Artist, which is why I pursued my Duel Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My artwork has now found a profound meaning that is able to help others heal. The affect my art has on others drives me and my creative purpose.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
When I was 5 years old I remember being so proud of this hummingbird at a flower I had created with chalk pastels. I was proud because of how closely the National Geographic photo matched my drawing. This attention to detail expanded into drawing faces, and then portraits, and the mastering of mimicry, like many artist and collectors, was a skill set I became fascinated by. Attending a rigorous and highly ranked Fine Art program at the Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) school in Cincinnati Ohio, taught me some great tricks of the trade, and expanded on more elements and principals of art. However, it also taught me how to be judgmental of my work and other’s, highly critical, and never satisfied. Was a piece ever finished? Was it ever good enough? Was me or my work ever good enough? I learned that a “professional work” wasn’t valid unless it was legitimized by a gallery, and that the ultimate goal of being a successful artist was the financial gain, and status one could acquire by showing in as many galleries as possible. This always felt so empty to me. When I began studying Art Therapy in grad school, I had to unlearn quite a bit of the conditioning in the Fine Arts. I had to learn how to feel into myself and not judge that feeling, but express it freely in whatever form it wanted to be in. I had to learn to trust my inner source of creativity (many eastern healing arts locate this in the Sacral Chakra of the body, or the gut). I learned how to let go of reference photos. I had to learn how to let go of what was defined as “successful” in my creative process. I unlearned fear, and embraced courage by giving myself permission to transform my artwork and how it is defined by me. I define a successful artwork as anything that was externalized from my psyche or emotions, because that in itself is unique expression of my soul. I unlearned this lesson of criticism and judgement of my work and other’s and replaced it with a skill of feeling the energy and appreciating all artworks as beautiful manifestations of one’s inner workings.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The ability to be an artist of my own life and to have the tools to heal myself is what I find most rewarding. To defy the labels, boxes, and expectations with what is most beneficial for me. To give myself permission to invent, discover, and be inspired. I was reading about metaphysics and how it relates to the Chakra system in our bodies (energy centers that run up the body) and was taken aback by one part in particular. It said that all matter is constructed of moving light photons, and the only thing that makes a photon a solid particle is when it is observed. So, whatever I choose to focus on, is what becomes solid in my reality. Hermeticism and metaphysics also states the “law of vibration” and its secondary “law of attraction.” These laws teach that one must become what they want to experience, in order to attract what they want in their lives. I enjoy embracing this concept in my work by endeavoring to focus on positivity, love, and to be solution focused. However, this doesn’t mean I ignore the other “darker” parts of myself. There is always a spectrum of emotion that I allow myself to process freely in my personal art therapy artworks, which include the less comfortable feelings. Feelings of rejection, pain, loneliness, anger, fear, inferiority; all parts of the human experience are felt. The act of feeling them, sitting with it, and expressing it through art helps externalize it. I can use other art therapy techniques like painting over an emotionally charged piece with a positive image, for example. The brain actually changes the association with the content and transforms it. Perhaps I have a disturbing dream, a technique in art therapy called “new dream therapy” allows me to paint the dream, then paint over a new outcome, or create a new piece that depicts a new outcome of the dream. The brain doesn’t actually know the difference between an experience or an imagined experience. It’s amazing to feel the affects of this technique and also explains why meditation and visual meditations are so powerful as well. The imagination is a powerful form of healing, and expressing it in an image “seals the deal.”I am so grateful for the ability to use my learning in art therapy as a way to heal myself, and also have a series entitled “Look In” that depicts my ongoing and never ending healing process.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.lookingupwellness.com/
- Instagram: @Monica_Doreen_Art
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MonicaDoreenArt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI_W-PRVarM
Image Credits
All photographs are original and taken by the Artist, Monica Doreen.