Trac Davies Artist - Musing's from the Depths.: August 2018

Moving Away from a Depressive State of Mind: What lessons can be learnt or lost.

The Black Dog – Departure.

In the past few years, I have been working on a series called The Black Dog. I have been rather surprised by these pieces of work not only because of the random order that they have appeared, but also they arrive when they damn well feel like it, often when I’m planning on painting something entirely different! I still have one of the Black Dog paintings that I’ve been unable to finish, it’s sitting on the top of the wine rack in my studio and looks accusingly at me every time I pass it by. One day, the energy will open to me again and I’ll finish it but I have completed two other pieces in the lull.

One of these pieces wasn’t a painting but a pastel. I wasn’t planning on creating a Black Dog painting, I wasn’t even thinking of this series but somehow I managed to marry the series with another painting obsession of mine, the Red Riding Hood.

Black Dog - Departure. Trac Davies ©

Here we see a black wolf rather than a black dog and its face is rather expressive. It sits with its back to the viewer but in between two trees, partially hidden by the closest tree to us. Although the wolf has its back to us, he turns and faces the viewer sorrowfully. The departing figure is walking away from the viewer and totally hidden in a cloak of red, the tail of the cloak reaches a large bole in the tree where a white owl sits watching the figure as she departs. A fox sleeps in the base of that same tree, which is illuminated on one side by a full moon. The scene lit by this same moon, shows that it is winter, there are no leaves on the trees or on the ground. In the background there is a stark, bare and gloomy forest this contrasts with the foreground of the piece. The picture is dark, which depicts that the woman has been dealing with ”a dark night of the soul” and although she’s leaving this state and starting to heal, she’s not in the light of day just yet.

Departure is when we finally face that it’s time to leave behind a certain mental state and go into the black of the unknown, leaving the black dog and all that it represents behind. The woman, doesn’t look back as she is leaving. She is cloaked and she will be highly visible wearing a cloak such as hers but she is but also protected. When one leaves a certain in depressive state behind, we wear a persona that is both of our true selves and not at the same time. Our innermost self is protected by this highly visible person that we become and we develop this outer person to distract others away from the healing but more vulnerable self. As yet, she is not ready to show her innermost private soul to the outside world and perhaps she never will be, maybe the persona becomes the person that she is most comfortable with.

The woman walks into the depths of the black night, she does this without looking back, only the moonlight illuminates her way. This light renders everything in black and white and shades of grey so although her way at first may appear obvious, the grey areas put everything she sees and experiences in doubt. We do not see her face, again due to protection of the inner psyche but also because she’s taking no notice of the observer whatsoever. Once we proceed with such deep healing work, bystanders almost cease to exist. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, healing work such as this is so deep, it takes all of our energy to start walking along this path. At first, when we are trying to untangle ourselves from the confusion of deep gloom of our muddled mind, which here I have depicted with the dark and gloomy forest, we are very self-aware that the world appears to be watching our struggles and this can sometimes exacerbate the struggle. However, once untangled from all those negative emotions, we don’t look back but we do go into our inner self so our deepest thought processes and to what our heart holds most dearest. This state of being can be triggered by both external and internal forces but we have to really want to go through this because facing ourselves is one of the hardest things we ever have to endure. Facing our anger, fear, sadness and toxicity takes inner strength and in all honesty, we usually need a boot up the arse to get us moving. In addition, we have to be ready to take heed of this boot and listen to it and our innermost self in the first place.

The tail of the cloak surrounds the bole of the foremost tree in which resides a white owl, symbolising both wisdom and purity of mind. Once we take heed of the external and internal forces that push us to move away from the gloomy forest, it’s wise to keep moving forwards. The owl, is self explanatory, inner wisdom watches our progress and ensures that we keep moving forward, however fast this is. Progress is all that matters, the speed at which we move forwards isn’t really relevant. Being able to move forwards after being caught in the snares and thickets of our own mind is the main thing.

The fox is also evident. Depression is a wily beast to deal with and so we too need wile and much courage on this journey. When struggling in the thicket of the forest with our black dog, the fox would have been awake so as to help us thwart it. However, now it sleeps but you can see from its posture that it can soon be roused again if needed.

Finally we arrive at the black dog, which in this case is a wolf! Wolves are known to be fabulous predators but they will shy away from humans unless they have no choice and are starving hungry, even then they would prefer other prey. This black wolf has been part of the woman’s psyche for a very long time, this is why it is now a wolf rather than a dog. It has had no choice but to be a predatory beast because she hasn’t been able to either leash it or paradoxically, set it free, thus it had been predating on her exhausted mind. The wolf sits with its back to us because this is not about the viewer or their state of mind. There is additionally a tree is between the departing figure and the wolf because she has started the journey away from depression, thus now she can’t really see where it is and what it was. This is true in depression, the journey away means that often we forget what we became at that time and so miss the opportunity to learn from it. The wolf turns to face the viewer rather than the departing figure. When somebody is in the darkest throes of depression, in many cases this is all bystanders and acquaintances see. They do not see the person inside and continue not to for some time afterwards and in some cases never see the real person. Thus we can be a totally different person with new and good perspectives, we could no longer be depressed but others will not always see this, they will just see what you were in the past. Thus the wolf looks only at you, because this is your perception of that person which has been judged on past behaviour.

In truth, depression can be our best teacher about ourselves if we let it be and treat it right but if we don’t start progressively moving forwards, it can turn on us. When we finally have the courage to walk away, if we are not careful we end up walking away from the lessons that we have learnt. Our black dog should be our teacher and can be an old friend if we treat it right. Our black dog is part of us. Here the figure in the cloak walks away without a backward glance. Although this is the right thing to do and the only course of action that she should take, her dog will always be with her, denying it the privilege of accompanying her from time to time will only make it more difficult to deal with if she comes across it again.

Therefore, you can’t truly suppress it, lock it away or leave it behind. Your black dog is part of you and her wolf is sad because she is denying herself these feelings that shouldn’t overwhelm her but are still part of her and need to be dealt with on a daily basis, even if it is to touch base from time to time.

Once we walk away from a depressive state, it’s good and the right thing and is also part of a huge mystery because we don’t really know what we’ll find there. To deny everything that has gone before can backfire. To let your black dog accompany you but leashed is the better alternative. Yet this is a deeper part of learning that many miss. It takes years to learn to love your black dog and snuggle with it but once you do THIS is when the healing truly starts.

Wednesday 29 August 2018

Black Dog - Departure.

Moving Away from a Depressive State of Mind: What lessons can be learnt or lost.