On January 28, 2023, a little over two years ago, a serial rapist physically and sexually assaulted me in Palm Springs. My mother died a few weeks later, adding more emotional pain at a vulnerable time.
Ironically, before the assault, I had planned my February 2023 blog to be about the use of art therapy in trauma resolution. And so it was, with a deep dive into my own trauma history and the effects of the fresh trauma (click here to read). But I was just at the beginning of understanding and healing from what had happened to me that evening.
After I went public about the attack, other victims came forward. Police arrested the serial rapist in May 2023 and he is still in jail, awaiting trial on multiple felonies involving seven victims. The total number of victims I am aware of is in the high teens.
I have not been back to Palm Springs since. I will go for my assailant’s trial, when it occurs. But I don’t expect the area to ever have the appeal for me it once did.
There have been six delays in moving to trial. Through my attorney, I am opposing any further delay. It’s time to end the trauma for all the victims, named and unnamed.
What does this have to do with art? With my art?
Art is one way humans deal with deep emotions. And by art, I mean any creative expression.
When I am composing music, or writing this blog, or am caught up in a new collage, or improvising on the piano, I have a chance to get in touch with the subconscious. Things come out of the subconscious, ideas and movements and relationships. And above all, feelings.
When the creative process is really cooking, I get lost in the flow and lose track of time. Then, almost always, I find myself in a different emotional space.
Out of this process there is usually something tangible, a piece of art or writing, or a recording. Sometimes there isn’t a finished product, but things have shifted internally. There was a useful process. I have healed a bit.
Sometimes I write to understand my own thoughts and to know what I really think.
But sometimes I make art to NOT think. I make art to bypass my thoughts and touch my emotions. With a quiet mind, I make art to find connection with the universal energy that I believe is within all sentient beings.
There is a lot of loose talk in our society about “closure”. I don’t think that’s a very adequate word.
Things are never really “closed”. But trauma can be processed and integrated.
To fully feel grief, to acknowledge the horror of an experience, to experience all the pain that comes with loss, allowed me to find compassion for myself and become functional again. The obsessive thoughts became less intrusive. Shoots of joy came up in a desolate emotional landscape. Waves of grief still come, too, but they roll through less often.
Today, two years after the assault and my mother’s death, I find myself more drawn than before to people who are compassionate and have had their own losses. I am myself more compassionate and less judgmental, toward myself and others. I notice I have a new ease about life, and new acceptance of loss and change, and new gratitude for all that remains.
The quickest way to emotional healing is through all that emotional pain. To try to avoid pain, through denial of what happened or through engaging in avoidant, self-destructive behaviors, or through use of mind-numbing substances, is to delay healing. Delay can be a trap that many never escape.
To feel, and to weep, is to heal. To be human. And then, life can go on. Differently perhaps, but it goes on.
My life changed two years ago. I wish that night had never happened. But there is still a lot of life to live, and I am grateful to be alive. I still believe in love, and in the possibility of connection and intimacy, even though I have never experienced those things in the way I always craved.
But art also offers a kind of vulnerability and intimacy for which I am grateful.
Ray of Light
This diptych began the night of January’s Second Saturday Art Walk, as I made intuitive, bold lines with a marker on two wood panels. Working on wood is a slower process than working on paper, but the result is a more tactile and organic piece of art that doesn’t need framing.
Ray of Light again uses my sky images, some captured while flying. I chose imagery that fit the patterns marked on wood, adding and subtracting some sections as the piece came together. As always, the work took some unexpected turns and I added some elements not originally sketched.
I have been flying 51 years now. The sky is where I feel most at home, and maybe that comes across here. In the bold lines there is movement, direction, purpose, joy.
Ray of Light, collage and acrylic on two 18” x 24” wood panels
Connections
In writing, making visual art, and music, I have a chance to reveal myself in a way that is quite intimate. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I tend to be a bit cerebral, and… let me just say it… nerdy.
Nevertheless, being creative lets me reveal myself to those who are interested in what I do and who I am. I enjoy the connections that come out of my work, be it the people who come through the studio or those who respond to what they see on my website or social media.
I also enjoy sharing my passions for travel, languages, music and flying with like-minded people of all ages. And it’s a special joy seeing young people find their passions, whatever they may be.
In 2022, I helped establish a Flight Training Scholarship Program through Friends of Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg. Last year we awarded over $160,000 in flight training to 29 young St. Petersburg-area residents between the ages of 16 and 24. We recently opened applications for our third year’s scholarships, which are available here through February 28.
One of our newly licensed scholarship winners, Noble O’Connor, recently took our friend Owen Donaldson and me on lunch flights to Winter Haven and Sebring. We had a blast!
For cool rugs, check out Owen’s Chakrug designs, which are awesome.
Rand Snell, Owen Donaldson and Noble O’Connor
Noble O’Connor and Owen Donalson at Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base, Winter Haven, Florida
Mentorship is rewarding. I remember how much I learned from older pilots when I was a teenager learning to fly. I feel a circle being closed, now that I can give back some of what I was given and what I have learned over five decades of owning, rebuilding and flying airplanes.
Among my former mentees are several current professional pilots I encouraged to fly. Some had never considered flying until I gave them a ride.
Life is good.
