Suzanne Bates
"I would rather die of passion than of boredom."
- Vincent van Gogh
The Artist
Standing in a crowd, the pit in your stomach grows, unable to speak—a screaming in your soul, so desperate for someone to see you, to notice that you cannot breathe. Loneliness is a dark, damp cave that feeds on your despair; growing more intense every moment, suffocating you with isolation.
In those familiar moments, I reached for color, I grasped at life. I began to create a world I could escape to. Warm and cool tones became my voice. Tiny gold beads of color emerged as a representation of an unnoticed magic that exists in the seconds before life’s monumental moments—when the universe and all its components slow to synchronized drumming. Your heart races and stops simultaneously. There is a stillness between breaths. There is hope.
Creating became my friend, my therapist, my lover, my soulmate. It has been my companion in the cave. But unexpectedly it also became the catalyst that forced me out into the crowd. As I tried to escape from the harshness of this world, it brought me back and rooted me into the center of it all. In this space, there is electricity that comes from the earth and connects you entirely to the universe. In this space, you can peer into one’s soul and become aligned to the ancient elements of existence.
At times it can be challenging—I try to run away from it. Through my determination to have a career as an artist, I have created a community of beautifully odd, expressive people. I have found a world where others can hear my screams and I can hear theirs. We don’t run from the dark loneliness but explore it together.
My art is no longer an escape, a place for me to run away. My work has transformed into a platform which brings people, even for the simple act of observing a painting. If you are hurting, alone, or looking for more, you can join me in this place to heal and cry and love and laugh.
When He Looked At Her, He Could See the Heart of the Night
