Art Saves • by Dawn DeVries Sokol

Ten years ago, I was just beginning my art adventure. I wandered into a paper arts store and it changed my life. Literally, I looked around and immediately felt at home.

Art After September 11th
Not long after that shopping spree, our hearts were broken and our lives changed forever. In the flash of an airplane into the World Trade Center, and then the fall of the towers, I fell into a silent panic — an anxiety I’m sure we all felt that September day. I was nowhere near New York or Washington, D.C., but I felt it all the same. That night the Phoenix skies darkened without the constant airplane lights overhead, and the traffic grew silent after 7 p.m. My husband and I slept in the living room that evening with the TV’s glow serving as a nightlight and the commentators’ continuing coverage of the tragedy drowning out the all-too-noisy quiet. Later that week, with time on my hands and some new energy, I turned to my craft table. I began to fashion little flag-shaped pillow brooches. They weren’t much — an American flag stamped onto muslin, then painted in with watered-down acrylics, and made into a little pillow with a pin fastener on the back. But in creating those, I felt more centered somehow — a bit calmer.

Turning to Art for Solace
I continued over the next six weeks to create things: rubber-stamped cards and more brooches. But then tragedy struck again. This time it was closer to home. My father, at age 59, died of a heart attack in his sleep. And my world teetered all over again, and this time in a much deeper way.

Yet when I look back at that time of my life, I realize it was art I turned to again for solace. I was able to commemorate my father and my family through my creations, such as a soldered pendant with a picture of my father as a young boy, dressed as a cowboy and sitting on a horse, and a wooden box with a collage of my parents’ wedding picture. I relied on past family pictures for my favorite creations then as I do now. Ten years later, those same family photos repetitively adorn my art journal pages. Through my art, I carry with me my family. It calms me when there’s just too much going on in the world to absorb and understand. And it saves me.

To learn more about Dawn DeVries Sokol, visit dawndsokol.com.

Comments

[Mom]

I could not have have expressed it myself! It was one of the worse days of my life. But with the help of my wonderful kids I know I would not be in the good place I am today. Your father was one of the good ones lost at a very sad time in all our lives. Love you lots! your are the best ! Mom