HIV Art and Poetry
-
Upload
john-toledo -
Category
Documents
-
view
220 -
download
0
Transcript of HIV Art and Poetry
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
1/12
University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Aesthetic
Education.
http://www.jstor.org
HIV, Art, and a Journey toward Healing: One Man's StoryAuthor(s): Julia KellmanSource: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 33-43Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3527430Accessed: 10-08-2015 07:40 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinoishttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3527430http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3527430http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinoishttp://www.jstor.org/
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
2/12
HIV,
Art,
and a
Journey
toward
Healing:
One
Man's
Story
JULIA
KELLMAN
Some of the territory is wilder and reports do not tally. The guides are
good
for
only
so
much.
In
these
wild
places
I
become
part
of
the
map,
part
of the
story, adding
my
versions there.
This Talmudic
layering
of
story
on
story,
map
on
map, multiplies possibilities,
but
also
warns
me of
the
weight
of accumulation.
I
live
in
one
world-material,
seemingly
solid-and the
weight
of
that
is
quite enough.1
I
have
just
reread
anthropologist
Ruth
Behar's2
essay, Anthropology
That
Breaks
Your Heart. It started me
thinking
about several
things-the
outer
limits of psychic pain, for example, or the relationship of the researcher and
the
researched,
of
bearing
witness
and
giving testimony,
and
of
the ethno-
graphic experience
of
talking, listening, transcribing, translating,
and
inter-
preting
that
forms the
core
of
enquiry
about
people
and their lives.3 What
can
I
say,
I
wonder,
to touch readers
in
such
a
way
that
they
see
the
indis-
pensable
truth
in
the individual stories that
develop
from
such
enquiries?
How
can
my
role
as
interpreter
and
witness
lead to the
understanding
that
the
buffeting
winds
of
lived
experience
(those
of the
researcher
and of
those
who are researched) are not inconveniences but an essential
quality
of hu-
manistic
research?
How can
I
use the accretion of stories that make
up my
research
and
my
life
(as
if
there
were
a
difference),
I
muse,
as
I
sit
at
my
computer
screen
reading
a text as it in
its
turn
reads
me,
as
the
writer
Jeanette
Winterson4
describes this
experience.
For over
the
years,
I,
too,
not
only
have come
to feel this
pulse
of
the
systole
and
diastole
of
telling
and
being
told,
but I
have also used this
alternating
relationship
to
develop
in-
sight
into the nature
of the
connection
of
researcher and
researched,
teacher
and
taught.
There
are
two main
narratives
that
form the
core of this
particular
un-
dertaking-one personal
and the other the result of
informal
conversations,
Julia
Kellman s
AssociateProfessorof
both
Art
Educationand
Psychiatry
at
the Uni-
versity
of Illinois.
She
is
a
recent contributor to
Journal
of
Cultural
Research
n
Art Edu-
cation,
Journal
f
Visual
Arts
Research,
nd CultureWorks.
he also
has
a book
manu-
script
in
progress,
Shades
f
Difference:
rt,
HIV/AIDS
nd
the
Journey
oward
Healing.
JournalofAestheticEducation,Vol. 39, No. 3, Fall 2005
?2005
Board
of
Trustees
of
the
University
of Illinois
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
3/12
34 Julia Kellman
formal
interviews,
casual
interactions,
social
events,
and
interchanges
dur-
ing
the art class for
people
with
HIV/AIDS
that
I
teach
weekly
at a
local
hospital.
The
stories
both
probe
the
mystery
of
disease,
expression,
and
the
search for
coherence,
and,
in
my
case,
the role of the wild
places
on the
map 5
where the
researcher/writer
adds her witness
and
testimony
to
the
narrative
to
become
part
of the
story.
Individual
Experience
Before we
begin
this
discussion
of
individual
experience,
art,
and
illness,
it
is
important
to
point
out that there are
only
two
general types
of
humani-
ties
enquiry:
One
enumerates,
compares
and
contrasts,
creates
and
tests
hy-
potheses,
reads
literature,
and/or
examines the minutiae
of
materials
or
systems
of
one sort or another.
The
other is
engaged
in
exploring
the indi-
vidual,
the
idiosyncratic,
and the
unique.
Its
subject
is
that
which is
particu-
lar.
My
research consists
of the
second
type, qualitative
to its
core,
and
deeply
sunk
in
the
narrative,
personal
world
of
lived
experience.
The
privacy
of individual
situations,
our utter
singularity,
is
one
of
the
factors that most marks our lives as creatures. We can share our stories, de-
scribe
our
impressions,
explain
our
sensations,
but
unless
we
participate
in
an actual
experience
in
which our boundaries
momentarily
disappear,
the
most
we
can
hope
for is
the simultaneous
partaking
of
similar
feelings
with
a
sensitive,
empathetic
companion
in
what
philosopher-sociologist
Alfred
Schutz6
describes as
a
We-relationship,
an
intersubjective experience
that
leads to
sharing
time,
mutuality,
and
growing
old
together.
Thus the tick-
lish
nature of
achieving
actual
interpersonal
congruence
makes
enquiries
into the specifics of actual lived experience difficult. If one is to learn any-
thing
useful from
such
considerations,
one
must focus on
the individual
and
the
story
of
his/her
particular
life
journey
in an
intimate,
extended,
multifaceted manner
and content
one's self
with
the fact
that
all
one
will
ever be
able to
report
about in
such
an
undertaking
are
discrete events and
single people,
never
grand
numerical
accumulations or
demographically
significant
quantities.
Researcher's
Disclaimer
For
a
reader
to orient
herself
in
relationship
to what
comes
next
in
these
narratives,
to
understand
my perspective
and
biases as a means
of
appro-
priately
weighing
what
I
have
to
say,
it
is also
essential
to have
insight
into
one
or two
of
the
personal
paths
I
have
taken to
arrive
at
this
moment
in
the
midst of this
enquiry.
What
follows,
therefore,
is meant
to
clarify my
place
and
my
proclivities
in
this
ongoing story
of the
intersection of
HIV/AIDS,
art
making,
and
people's
lives.
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
4/12
A
Journey
toward
Healing
35
The author William
Styron7
has written of his
struggle
with
depression,
describing
his
developing
private
nightmare
and his arduous
struggle
to
re-
turn
from the
edge
of
disaster
in
DarknessVisible.
Others, too,
for
example,
Sylvia
Plath8 and
Anne
Sexton,9
have written
poetry wrung
from
their
deepest feelings, describing
the
terror, horror,
rage,
and
powerlessness
that
later
swept
them
like
an
undertow out
into
the
sea
of
self-destruction.
Fur-
ther,
as
the
psychiatrist Kay
Redfield
Jamisonl?
points
out,
the
list of
artists
of all
sorts
(musicians,
visual
artists, writers,
and
others)
with
depression
or
manic
depression
is extensive. Such
depression
and
its
frequent
result,
sui-
cide,
are not
just
the
purview
of artists
and
other
exceptionally
creative
people, however. It is a disorder that also stalks the rest of the population
with the
same terrible results.
My
own
experience
is such
an
example.
It has
been
ten
years
since
my two-year
bout
with
a
profound, disabling
depression,
a
condition
that,
in
slightly
milder
manifestations,
has
dogged
me
throughout my
life.
However,
though
several
years
have
passed,
sev-
eral
moments from
that
difficult
time remain
clear to me as individual
events-travel
highlights,
as
it
were,
from
a
brochure
describing
a
holiday
in
hell. A
single
event is
all
that is
necessary
here as emblematic of all
the
other experiences of exquisite and stupefying pain. Perhaps the one I have
chosen
will
seem
banal,
but I
can
assure
you
that,
as
an
example
of
pure
misery,
it
contains the heart
of what
I
am
after-insight
into the
ferocity
of
psychic
agony
and a
grasp
of
my
research
perspective
and the
personal
na-
ture of
my enquiries,
grounded
as
they
are
in
feminist
anthropology
and
phenomenology.
These two
characteristics-my
research
interests and
my
philosophical
underpinnings-provide
the rationale for
engaged,
intimate,
and
profoundly
personal
relationships
with
the
individuals with
whom I
do
my
research
as well as
my
engagement
with their
social,
psychological,
and
physical
worlds.
Here is
my
tale.
It
was
one
of
those
grey,
sticky
airless
days
in
North Carolina in
which
the
honey-thick
humid air
smelled
of
approaching
rain
and
growing
things
gone
unchecked and
wild.
As
usual,
I
was
at
my
desk
in
my tiny,
white,
boxlike
study,
with
its
useless
slitlike windows
through
which
no
breeze
ever found
its
way,
struggling
to
write
an
article.
Depression
was
my
con-
stant
companion that summer, a condition that not only robbed me of sleep
most
nights
but
that
accompanied
me
everywhere-a
thick
choking
cloud
compounded
of
confusion and
unbelievable
pain.
It
wrapped
me
like
a
blanket
that
morning,
too-stifling,
colorless,
killing.
Suddenly
the
man
next
door started his
power
mower
directly
under
my
study
windows. The
noise of his
engine
instantly
swamped
my
few at-
tempts
at
thought,
and what
remained
of
my
mind
disintegrated
under
the
onslaught
of
noise and
gas
fumes.
The
longer my
neighbor
mowed,
the
more my agitation grew. Miraculously, however, within a few minutes, the
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
5/12
36 Julia
Kellman
storm
that
had
been
gathering
throughout
the
morning
broke. The
rain,
an
opaque,
thunderous
wall
of
water,
drove
my neighbor
indoors.
My
mind
is
blank
on
what
happened
next.
I
don't remember
anything
about what
impelled
me, but what I next recall is
sitting
flat on the cement
sidewalk
in
front
of
my
house,
legs
akimbo,
howling
like
a
moonstruck
wolf,
water and tears
streaming
down
my upturned
face, sodden, obliterated,
unmade.
My
personal
acquaintance
with
disintegration
is
what
matters
here,
for it
ties
my
story
directly
to the
story
of
Joe,
a
member of a
hospital
HIV/AIDS
expressive
art
group.
He,
too,
has been unmade
(though
in a manner
far
more
complex
than
my
psychological
collapse)
and
then
remade,
and the
story
of his
journey
to a
place
of balance and
healing
must
begin
at
the be-
ginning,
with
the terrible chaos of
a
personal
world
gone
mad.
Though
our
emotional distress
had
different
initial
causes
(depression
in
my
case and
the
diagnosis
of
AIDS
in
his),
the nature of
profound despair
offers
an
as-
surance that
my
insight
into at
least
a
portion
of
Joe's
misery
is
as accurate
as
possible
for another
person
to
entertain,
grounded
as
it
is
in
actual
expe-
rience.
Therefore,
though
I
may
seem to
flirt
with
a
rationale for
a
surrender
of
boundaries or, God forbid, a type of reverse transference, what I am try-
ing
to
say
here is that
I
feel
Joe's
story
in
the
marrow
of
my
bones
and
that
my
telling
of it
is
undergirded by
substantial firsthand
insight
into the
experience
of
being
undone.
What
follows
then,
told
in
the best
way
I
can
muster,
is
Joe's
story-his
struggle
with
dissolution,
then
transition,
and
finally
transformation-and
the
role
that
art
played
in the
new,
ever
developing
map
of his
life.
Joe's
Story
Dissolution
As
Joe
tells the
story
of his
eight-year-long
life with
HIV/AIDS
(now
con-
trolled
by
the HAART
regimen-highly
active
antiretroviral
treatment,
now
routinely
used for
HIV/AIDS
treatmentll),
he
begins
at
the
beginning
of his
long
and
difficult
journey-the
emergency
room
of
a
county hospital
in
a
large
metropolitan
area,
the
narthex to hell
as he
describes
it,
or,
per-
haps,
as
Joe
suggests,
one of hell's
outer circles.
Coughing,
feverish, weak,
fainting,
and
increasingly
miserable,
he
sat in
the
crowded
waiting
room,
with
its
carnival
atmosphere
and
not
in
a
good
sense,
a
Diane Arbus12
photograph
come to
life of
poor,
helpless,
and
often
deeply idiosyncratic
souls whose
only
access to
medical
care
was
to be found in
the
emergency
room:
I
waited
forever and
finally got
back
into the
triage
area and still
had
to wait. Then two nurses came in, and one of them says they need to
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
6/12
A
Journey
toward
Healing
37
get
blood drawn
(to
test blood
gases),
and like
I
said
earlier,
I
have
a
history
...
I
can't
have blood
drawn
unless
I'm
lying
down.
So,
I'm
lying
down
and I
go,
so, ok,
here's
an arm.
Oh, no,
that's not how we
do
this.
She
explains
to me how its done
and that
they
take it from
your
wrist. This is
going
to
hurt. I'm
already
in
a
lot
of
pain
here
anyway,
so
I
don't know
if
I
will
be able to feel much
more.
They
both
did it
at the same time out of each
wrist,
like
they
had been
practicing
it. It
really
hurt.
If I
hadn't been so
weak,
I would
have
jumped up
and
yelled.
After
they
had
figured
out
that
there was
about
50%
of the
nor-
mal
amount of
oxygen
that
a
person
usually
has
in
their
blood,
they
put
me
in
isolation. The doctor came
in and talked with me
and
told
me
they
would be
admitting
me. She
mentioned
they
were also
going
to do an HIV test. That was when it first
really
popped
into
my
head.
Up
to that
point,
aside
from
having
my appendix
out,
I had
been
healthy
as
a
horse.
Anyway,
a
couple
of
days
later
the
doctor came
back and
confirmed
it
(a
positive
HIV
test).
She
also told me that
once
I
was
released,
I
would be
going
to
a
clinic for
treatment,
but
I
was
in
such
a
state of
mind that I
didn't understand what
she said. Even
though
she
explained
it
perfectly
well,
I
couldn't understand
it. I
took
it
to mean
that I
was
going
to the clinic to
stay.
Basically
[it
was
going
to
be]
a
nursing home/hospice
situation,
that
I
was that bad.
I
re-
member later that night being in such a frantic frame of mind that I
started
looking
for
scraps
of
paper
to
write out
my
will and
then
giving
up
because
I
didn't
have
enough
room to write
things.
Joe's
description
of his
emotional state when
learning
of his
HIV-posi-
tive blood
test,
nearly
nonexistent
T-cell
count,
and
opportunistic
pneumo-
cystis
carinii
pneumonia
infection
(all
the
necessary
markers for
a
diagnosis
of
full-blown
AIDS),
his lack
of
comprehension,
his
terror, confusion,
and
pain,
as well as the
frantic
fruitless search for
paper
to leave a final
word,
a
last trace of
himself,
certainly
characterize
what I
have
previously
described
as
a
sense of
personal
dissolution,
of
being
unmade.
It
is at
such
a
point,
however,
that
one
either
succumbs or
struggles
forward.
Joe
continues,
The
bright
side of
all
that
is,
and
this is
hard
for
a lot of
people
to
under-
stand,
that
when
you
face that
situation,
and
you
have no
choice
but
to face
it,
you
realize
you
have faced
the
worst,
and
everything
after that is a
lot
easier.
So ...
He
pauses
here for
a
moment,
then
continues,
I
got
better.
The
Way
Forward
One
may
wonder
at
this
point
where
art
making
fits
into
Joe's
story
and
why
so
much
attention is
being
paid
to
HIV
and
despair.
The
reason is this:
If
the true
importance
of
art
making
for
people
who
are
ill
is to be
under-
stood,
art
must be
seen
in
the
context
of the
disease/disorder
itself.
Without
such
insight,
the
truly
astonishing
value
of
art
for such
people
scarcely
can
be
imagined,
and
the
sense
of scale of
various
responses
cannot
be
grasped.
(By scale, I mean the magnitude of an experience. For example, small mur-
murs of
pleasure
from
a
person
who is
miserable
seem,
to me at
least,
to
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
7/12
38
Julia
Kellman
generally
count for
more that the self-same soft exhalations from one
who
is
happy
and
well,
since
the
healthy person
has no
pain-induced
resistance to
overcome and has
far more attention to
give
to the whole of
experience-
their world not being shrunken and constrained by the effects of enduring
illness.)
At
the same
time,
however,
the
roots
of creation can often be
found
pushed deep
into the soil of such
misery
itself.
Joe's
story again
provides
an
example.
After
his release from the
hospital
and
while
reading
through
a
mound
of
books
and
pamphlets
on
HIV/AIDS,
Joe,
normally
a
restrained
man,
suddenly
became
energized
by
fury
at his situation.
He hurled
the
hopeless
texts and
depressing
compilations
across the room with as much force as he
could muster. Even as he threw the
offending
material,
four
words-truth,
faith,
dream,
and
desire-swam fishlike
into his otherwise
roiling
mind;
words that
were
to
serve
Joe
as
a
talisman
of sorts and that were to
accom-
pany
and
sustain
him
as he
navigated
the
choppy
seas of medical
complex-
ity.
These
words
were also later to form
the content
and structure of a deli-
cate
graphite drawing,
which itself was to serve
Joe
as
a
significant
marker
in
his
experience
and his art.
Returning
Home: Transition
Eventually
Joe
returned to the
Midwest
to
be
nearer
to his
family.
Life
did
not
immediately improve
on
familiar
territory,
however, for,
as
Joe
points
out,
I
really
think I had a
case
of
depression.
And I had
no idea. It
was
just
constant. You
get
used
to it. It
started about
a
year
and
a
half
ago,
in
Janu-
ary.
He
pauses
here for
a
moment.
God.
Time
flies.
Eventually,
how-
ever, Igot so sick of myself that I started volunteering at the coffee shop [a
church-sponsored
coffeehouse].
It
got
me out of
my apartment
and
around
other
people.
He also
began attending
other
community
events
too,
in-
cluding
the
annual
fall
HIV/AIDS
conference
at
the local
hospital
where we
met for
the first time.
Encouraged by
my presentation
on the
role of art
in
health
care,
Joe,
a
graduate
of a
well-known
art
school,
decided to
join
the
hospital
art
class,
too.
Articulate,
insightful,
reflective,
and
possessing sophisticated
art
skills,
Joe immediately became a valuable member of the class. His superb art-
making
abilities and his
sensitivity
to the
needs of others
also
made
him
an
especially
valuable
model
and
mentor
for the other
students. As the
weeks
passed, Roger,
another
class
member,
was able to coax
Joe
into
taking
part
in
other
activities-movies,
meals
out,
and a
variety
of social
events.
The
rest of the
class
played
a
role,
too,
nudging
Joe
to take
part.
Carried on the
winds of the art
class's
support
and
Roger's
charm,
Joe
flourished. He be-
gan
to
relax and
chat.
His
art
also
seemed to become more
daring,
mirror-
ing
and
reinforcing
his life's new direction.
Additionally,
he
began
to make
art at
home.13
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
8/12
A
Journey
toward
Healing
39
It
is
important
to
point
out
that
although
joining
the class
may
have
been
the result
of an
ongoing
process
of
change
in
Joe's
life
and
not
its
cause,
it
is
reasonable to
suppose
that the
positive aspects
of the class-its
warm,
sup-
portive
nature and the
opportunity
it
provided
to see
himself,
at least
part
of the
time,
as
an
artist,
not
patient,
as
a
creator,
not
passive
sufferer-also
played
a
role
in the
changes
he
experienced.
These
personal
alterations
were
not
simply my imagination,
either,
for
they
were affirmed
late
one
winter afternoon
in
class.
In the
silence
broken
only by
the rustle
of
papers
and
scratching
of
pencils,
Joe
suddenly spoke
in a voice full of
wonder,
I'm
back.
I'm
back,
he
said
again
to
himself,
as
much as
to
us.
Welcome
home,
Joe,
I
replied.l4
Transformation
Art
educator
Marilyn
Zurmuehlen,15
in
her small but
important
book on
the
value
of
art
making
for students Studio
Art:
Praxis,
Symbol,
Presence,
ex-
plains
that art
class
is a
place
where
energy
can be
realized
in
action.
It
is
also
a
place
where students can become
originators by combining
critical
reflection and action into the practice of art. She further elaborates the value
of
art
making
for the individual.
They
can be transformers as
well,
symboli-
cally
transfiguring
the
idiosyncratic meanings
of their life
experiences
into
the
presentational symbols
of art.
They
can be reclaimers of
phenomenal
presence, attending
to
what
usually
is taken for
granted,
and in
validating
their
subjective
perceptions,
they
can understand
that
seeing
is
an
aesthetic
determination. We make
it
happen.16
When
we
recognize
ourselves,
she
continues,
as
originators,
transform-
ers, and reclaimers, we participate in the sense of once ... now ... then ...
that
shapes
our
individual and
collective
life
stories, 17
and
it
is that
recog-
nition
that
ties
our
experience
into
meaningful
narratives.
In
Joe's
story,
we
can
see this
same
pattern
of
origination,
transformation,
and
reclamation
taking
place;
and
we can
see
the final
outcome as a
story
in
terms of which
Joe's
life
makes
sense,
a
necessary
outcome
for
creating
personal
meaning
from the
diverse events of
his
experience.
Art
Exemplars:Guideposts
on a
Journey
Three notable
creations mark
Joe's
return
from
a
depressed
state to
his
reengagement
with
the world.
These
creations also
indicate the
transforma-
tion
of his life
experiences
into the
satisfyingly expressive symbols
of
art
that
allow
for, first,
reflection
and
then
creation of
personal
meaning
and
sense.
The
first such
exemplar,
a
shrine,
was
constructed
in
a
shallow
cardboard
box. It
depicts Joe's early
and
complex relationship
with a
wealthy young
man
from
Mexico. The
shrine
contains
maps
that chart
their
relationship's
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
9/12
40 JuliaKellman
shifting
and
intertwined
geographies,
copies
of
photographs
of his
compan-
ion
and
the
world the two
men
shared,
images
from ancient Mexican
cul-
tures,
and
small,
personally
meaningful
objects-a holy
medal,
beads-all
remnants
of the
many
months
the men
spent living together.
A text in
Span-
ish
winds
threadlike over the shrine's
surface,
tying
the
images
and
objects
together
into a
multilayered symbol
of the
two
men's
relationship.
The
shrine
not
only
marks
Joe's
first weeks
in
the
art
class and describes
an
early
important experience,
but it
also memorializes the
beginning
of
his
life as
a
young gay
man in a
large city.
At
the same
time, however,
Joe's
shrine can be understood to have less
literal
meanings,
too,
for
it
is a
physi-
cal manifestation
of
his
reflection
on,
and
memory of,
an
earlier
period
in
his life
(a
visual recollection
of
things
past)
and his
transfiguration
of the
ashes of love into
a
concrete marker of
his
reconsideration
and
reclamation
of
an
important aspect
of
his
life
story.
Joe's
second
creation,
also
a
marker
of
significant
alterations
in
his
life,
is
a
pencil
drawing
undertaken several months
later.
The
drawing
contains
four
images,
each
in
its own
square.
The
squares
in
turn
are
arranged
in
stacked
pairs.
The
top right square depicts
an
image
of an
open
hand ex-
tended in the Indian mudra, or hand position, meaning come. The word
faith
is
placed
above
the
image.
The
left
top drawing
is
of a
wide-open
eye
labeled truth. The bottom
left
square
shows
a
raised hand
in
the
mudra
indicating
there
is
nothing
to
fear.
The
word
dream
lies
directly
below the
image.
Desire,
the
final
square
on the
bottom
right, portrays
the
lower
part
of a man's
face-lips,
chin,
and
the
tip
of a nose.
Through
the
center
of the
complete drawing,
between the
top
and
bottom
pairs
of
boxes,
are
the words
The
Healing
Power of
Art.
This
phrase
acts not
only
as a
description
of the content of the
drawing
but as a
compositional
devise that
pulls
the
four
drawings
together
into an
integrated
whole.
There
are
further
structural
elaborations,
too.
The
two
drawings
of hands
contain the
image
of
a
portion
of
a
slender,
banded
snake
winding
behind
them.
The
gently
S-curved
snake,
his
head
at
the
top
right
of
the
composi-
tion,
his tail
curved to
the lower
left,
reinforces the
relationship
of the two
images
of
hands,
for his sinuous
body
pulls
the viewer's
eye
on a
diagonal
from
top
right
to bottom
left. Both
have
heavy
black
graphite
backgrounds.
The
drawings
of the elements
of the human
face-the
eye
and the
full,
sensual
lips
and
nose-are
lighter
in
value
(value
indicates
darkness or
lightness)
than
the
images
of hands.
They,
too,
introduce
a
diagonal
based
on
content
(facial
features)
and
dark/light,
a
diagonal
that
in
this
case runs
from
top
left
to bottom
right.
This
description
allows
us see what
we
might
not have
noticed other-
wise-that the
image
is an
emphatic
construction of
organic
elements held
tightly
within
an
overall
framework
elaborated
with
repetitions
of solid
girderlike
lines.
Additionally,
the
drawing
can
be
seen as
a
type
of
mandala,
a
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
10/12
A
Journey
toward
Healing
41
form within a
form,
similar
to a meditative Tibetan
Buddhist
image.
Like
a
mandala,
it
contains the richness of
multiple images
and
shapes
that
func-
tion
both as
content
and
compositional
elements
depicted
within
a
stable
pattern.
Most
importantly,
however,
the
composition
can
be
understood as a
link
between
Joe's
past
and his
present
at
the same time that it
illustrates
an
as-
pect
of
Joe's
current life.
It
portrays
in its
solid form the words he
encoun-
tered
years ago
in a
moment
of
anger
and
despair,
words that
continue
to
shape
and
order
his
experience
with
their
life-enhancing implications.
The
drawing
can
perhaps
be understood as a
type
of
visual
prayer,
an
emphatic
image of personal transformation, balance, and healing.
Joe's
third and
most recent
guidepost
or
exemplar,
a
star-shaped
book
with six
double-layer,
stagelike
pages
bordered
with
black and elaborated
with
gold
Sanskrit
lettering, vegetative
motifs,
and
repeated
triangles,
in-
cludes the
whole of
Joe's
life
in
a
progression
of
images
from childhood to
the
present.
Most
significantly
though,
it
suggests
a
future as
well,
not
as
a
literal,
specific
place,
but
as a world
inhabited
by
the
great
coiling
snake
of
healing,
the
elaborate
glowing
red-gold-faced
Barong
Ket18-the
Balinese
male personification of the sun, of balance, harmony, and restoration-and
his
always
necessary opposite,
Rangda,19
she of the
long flying
black hair-
the female
personification
of
darkness, chaos,
and
destruction.
(Think
of
Shiva20 and Kali21
here,
or,
perhaps,
a
figural
yin
and
yang.)
Integrating
past
and
present
in
his
elegantly collaged
and drawn
pages,
Joe
dreams
of
a
future, too,
a
place
inhabited
by powerful
archetypal
images
of
balance and
healing.
Joe's
star
book,
his
finally
completed
personal
narrative,
at
last ties
the
disparate
elements of
his life
together-childhood, youth,
significant
re-
lationships,
HIV/AIDS,
and
his
hopes
and
beliefs
in a
future
of
harmony
restored.
Taken
either
as
a
whole or as
individual
pieces,
Joe's
art
relates his tale
of
once, now,
then
suggested
by
Zurmuehlen22
to be the
essential
charac-
teristic
of both art
making
and
the
creation of
narrative
meaning.
Addition-
ally,
his
telling
in
images
of the
story
within
which his life's
journey
makes
sense is
to
be
understood
as
a
critical
undertaking
for
one
who lives with
a
disease,
for
as
medical
anthropologist Gay
Becker23 points
out, narratives
are
performative
and
thus
empowering.
Stories
give
voice to
bodily
experi-
ence. And
they
can enable
the
narrator to
develop
creative
ways
of
inter-
preting
disruption
and
to draw
together
disparate
aspects
of the
disruption
into a
coherent
whole. 24
Most
importantly though,
it
is
through
stories
people
organize,
display,
and
work
through
their
experiences. 25
If
narratives are a
means
to
create
coherence,
empowerment,
and
meaning,
as
Becker26
suggests,
and
art
is a
narrative
undertaking,
as
Zurmuehlen27
makes clear, then it is the narrative quality of art that lies at the heart of its
special
value for
Joe
and for
others who
live with
disease or
disorder.
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
11/12
42
Julia
Kellman
However,
there
are other
important
qualities
in the
art-making
experience,
too.
A final
story
will
help
us
here,
for
it
not
only
fills
out the rest of what
is
significant for Joe in art, it brings us back to where we began, to the diffi-
culty
of
examining
someone
else's
experience,
of
the
place
of the
researcher
in
telling
another's
tale,
and
of
the
multilayered,
interwoven nature of
life
itself.
It
also
brings
us to those wilder
places
on the
map
where all
bets are
off-the
researcher-writer-teacher
becomes
part
of the
story,
and
there
are
no
guides
available that are worth
hiring.
Last
summer,
Joe
and
I
were
having
coffee
in a
local caf6. As
we
sipped
gingerly
at
our
two
hot
cups,
Joe
remarked,
I was
telling
my
case
manager
things
had
gotten
much better
in
the last
few
months,
and she wanted to
know
what I attribute it
to,
and
so
I
told her
about
the
coffeehouse,
and the
other
thing
is
you,
Julia.
Aside from
friendships,
the other
part
of
me
that
was
missing-it really
wasn't
missing,
it was
neglected-was
art,
and its all
because
of
you
and this
[art]
class. You
are a
bridge,
Joe
says softly,
his
voice
filled with
emotion.
Lest I seem
self-absorbed
and
narcissistic
for
repeating
this intimate con-
versation,
let me
explain.
It
seems
to me that it
is
my
role as
teacher
and
guide,
the
class
itself,
and
the
art
making
that
have formed this
powerful
bridge
for
Joe
and led
him
out
of himself into a world
made
new and wel-
coming.
It
is
this
combination-the
meaning-making
narrative
quality
of
art;
the
synergy
of
a
group
of
people
in an
art
class
engaged
in
exploring
the
wordless,
most
profound aspects
of themselves
in
images;
the
close
rela-
tionships
that
grow
from
such
intimacy
(who
can
explore
her/his
inner most
self
with a
group
of
people every
week for months on end without
develop-
ing complex, sustaining social bonds with one another?); and the transfor-
mation and
redefinition of
class members as art
makers,
their
empower-
ment
as
artists
in
fact-that leads to a sense of
confidence,
competence,
balance,
and control.
Final
Thoughts
What
is most
important
to
remember
is
that
we
have
heard and
seen
Joe's
story in his own words and images and recognize the extraordinary signifi-
cance
of art
making
in
his
life. It is
his rich visual
narrative that
is the heart
of
this
matter and
the
main
reason
for
this
undertaking
in
the
first
place.
For
Joe
both tells and
shows what it
means to deal with
unspeakable
disaster,
to
use
art
to
explore
and
order
a
world,
and
to
create
images
to
find
and mark
a
path
into
the future
across
a
rough
and
demanding landscape.
Do not
forget
this last
small
part
either,
for this is where
the
enquirer-
teacher
slips
back
into the
picture-for
Joe
has
added his
map
to
the
stack of
maps growing
on
my
desk. Our stories
overlap
now and
intermingle
with
This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:40:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/19/2019 HIV Art and Poetry
12/12