Art(TISTS) Heal

tyunglebower ♦ January 23, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

Doesn’t Matter what kind,.

To be in the proximity of other artists committed to the creative act is a balm unmatched in most other aspects in a creatives life. Healing, life affirming, increasing the depth of field of our spiritual vision.

Last week, I experienced all of the above as I took part in the one-weekend only production run of Taming of the Shrew at a local theatre.

It was the first show without my mother on the earth.

But before that, it was the first tech week without her, first rehearsal process without her, first audition without her. This was four months ago, and thus four months less into a grief process that has yet to reach it’s one year mark.

I wasn’t sure i could, or even wanted to do theatre anymore. After all, even when Mom could not come to the show, we shared the process, and she always stayed up late to hear how an opening went when I got home. She had been, as with all things in life, the central witness of my existence.

That being so, I nonetheless determined that part of the healing process may involve a return to one of the most longstanding creative outlets I have; acting. Shakespeare, particularly.

I went into the audition with no thoughts of who I wanted to play. The show was never a favorite of mine, and in fact I never much cared for it on the whole. But a familiar group was doing Shakespeare ion a familiar place, and this was the way to get back into it.

Right away as I read, the character of Grumio spoke to me for whatever reason. I knew in an instant what i can bring to the role, and how well it would suit my style and personality. The director agrees and gave me the role, and from that moment on just about every rehearsal someone comments on how I was giving so much to the character, confirming the feelings of a perfect match.

Other than some harried scheduling with my part time job and rehearsals, the process went about the same as normal until the last one. Ab semi-open rehearsal pay-what-you-can chance for people to see the show that could not see it on the regular days.

I broke down in front of my director, frightened and uncertain to a degree I was not used to an hour before “opening” the show. I figured it was coming…I was shaky in the car on the way to the theatre.

It had to happen. Many things played a role in my state by then, and it probably came from multiple reasons. But the darker, colder void of a world without Mom, focused like a laser into the microcosm of an audience just cut through me on the night. I knew I could deliver the lines and hit the lights, but suddenly doubted if I would connect, or feel connected to the room, and that is a death to a performance.

My conversation with my director, whom I love, is private. As are the particulars of other conversations and chats with different people to whom I am bonded in and around this community. But just as the breaking down revealed a vulnerability that I an unused to showing in front of even the people I care about most, the aftermath of support, for both my performance and my grief reflected back at me. And the reflection said that despite my inner doubts, I am in fact a real person A person with talent, a person worth of, (and actively in possession of) the love of my colleagues and friends.

I have rarely felt love with so few constrictions or distractions. No performative support, no filters. And, rarest of all, no mask, Rare for even that environment. At least up until now.

Being among fellow actors and creatives was for certain part of the calculus of destiny, (or the guidance of my angels if you will) for this moment in my life. If it had not been artists, not only would I have likely doubted the depth of the support expressed, but I would not have allowed myself the vulnerability in public to begin with.

And wouldn;t you know it, the show went well.

Mom’s death blasted a hole in my castle walls. The use art and the proximity or artists did not merely seal up the whole when I wasn’t looking; they built a whole new hallway or wing in which to put it. All be simply being artists, good people, and there for me all at the same time.

It is not merely that the arts heal, though they do. It is not merely that the creative act itself is a balm, if we can bring ourselves to it , though it is. It is about the people. It is always about the people. The people creating with you, or people nearby creating other things, but nonetheless aware of what I am doing.

I cherish the cards, the words, the gestures and gifts more than any of the people involved could possibly know. But the voluntary folding of my life force into the community of artists, whether or not we are in the process of creating is the profound takeaway from this experience.

And I never would have known it had I not opted to both audition, and not fight fear within me on the moment it occurred.