The Healing Power of Creativity
'Beth' - Coloured pencil on board 2020
This is a picture of my beautiful daughter Beth. I have written a lot about how difficult it has been to lose her: such a vivacious young woman, so full of life, it didn’t seem real when it happened, and in many ways it still doesn’t. The void that she left was further compounded because of what we shared - a love of all things creative.
Beth and I would often share ideas - she loved to write and draw just like me. Hours spent with both my children, baking and icing cakes, drawing, painting, writing, sewing, model making, these memories are so treasured.
But it isn’t just memories of times past that helps me face the present. Creativity is what I turned to both in the immediate aftermath and ever since. This portrait of Beth was made only months after her death, and working on it brought me such comfort. Every pencil mark, every feature, seemed to bring me closer to her - it was as though she was sitting with me, just like she used to. The sadness I felt on completing the picture was lifted by the knowledge that it had been created with her on my shoulder. Now, I look at it, smile and talk to her every day - it hangs by our staircase where tiny rainbows often appear - I like to think they are sent by her.
In the very early days of losing Beth, I had a dream. Like so many of my creative ideas, ‘The Cornish Pasty Pirates’ came to me while I was sleeping, complete and ready to write down. I wasn’t ready to face the enormity of my grief in those early days, so instead. I pushed it to one side, claiming just a few hours of respite every day, and immersing myself into a childish, whimsical world of nonsense, inhabited by imaginary pirates in Cornwall, a place of happy family memories. The project wasn’t deep or intense, but a simple distraction, dedicated to my daughter’s little boy.
Spread from 'The Cornish Pasty Pirates', Books By Sarah Publishing (7 April 2020)
Simple days spent drawing, sewing and collaging together seemed to help him too – his wonderful outcomes seemed to me, way beyond his years, giving us precious days spent together, not totally consumed by sadness.
Creating memories
Creativity has been with me as long as I can remember - childhood days passed happily drawing with my grandfather, experiences that have kept his precious memory alive for over forty years after his death. It was these recollections that fed into my first published picture book ‘Grandad’ in 2009.
Grandad, A Story To Help Children Cope Positively With Bereavement, Books By Sarah (2nd Edition 27 April 2020)
I created my first ever picture book ‘Bristles’, while I was at home from school recovering from measles, when I was just 11 years old. In one of the chapters, the character, a giant caterpillar also gets measles. Reading the story as an adult, I realise the creature was a metaphor for the way I felt about the world - plunged into a place I didn’t understand, where nothing made sense. School was never a happy place for me, and being home drawing and writing was just heaven. I was drawing not to heal from a childhood illness, but as respite from the stress of trying to fit into an environment that simply didn’t suit me, and where people were not kind.
From 'Bristles' 1977
Two years after my daughter died, I was still deeply consumed by grief. Again, I embarked on a creative project, but this time with a wonderful person who had also suffered huge loss and had reached out to me. We both began work on our memoirs, gradually sharing our stories with each other, chapter by chapter, and what resulted surprised us both! Not only did a deep and enduring friendship result, but a cathartic outcome of forgiveness emerged. I felt the huge burden of guilt that had intensified my loss, lifting - and with it my grief. During my 57 years, there has been a huge amount of loss in terms of bereavement, relationships and belongings - twice I have had to start all over again from nothing. But as I explored the ebb and flow of my life, I learned that none of it had been my fault - that it was just simply, life. I also realised how much I had learned on my long journey.
I was so rejuvenated by this work, that I felt strong enough to put together and publish my daughter’s own wonderful ‘Panacea Poetry‘, including all her cherished artwork and wise messages of hope, love, kindness and forgiveness - in essence, how to live life your own way, not how society steers you. Again, I felt her presence as I worked.
'Panacea Poetry, In Dark Times We Can Be The Light', by Bethany Johnson, Books By Sarah (20 August 2023)
Feeling liberated and with a more mindful and spiritual outlook on life, another dream led to the creation of my latest picture book ‘Anna’s Garden’. Having revisited my struggles as a child with dyspraxia at school while writing my memoir, along with memories of the associated lack of kindness and understanding, I decided to write a book that might help to change things. The characters, text and pictures flowed lovingly ‘out of my brains’ (as my grandson would say!). This time, the comfort of creativity came from knowing that this book could help other little children - and the belief that simple kindness is the most important thing one can learn.
Spread from 'Anna's Garden' to be published in March 2024 by Tiny Tree. 'Anna-mation' by Creative Remedy.
Creativity has been my medicine - when I draw, when I write, I focus on nothing else, a little bit of peace in a noisy world. Creativity can be solitary, or it can be shared - either approach nourishes and sustains. On New Years’ Eve I was blessed with a little granddaughter and I am so excited by the promise of sharing the joy of creativity with her as she grows, just as I did with my own children and my grandson. Wonderful things can still happen, even when you feel the whole world has come to an end.
For anyone who thinks they can’t write or draw, or they don’t have time, start small and just give it a try; the power of creativity to lift your spirit will surprise you. Do it only for yourself or share it - that’s the thing - it is your choice.
And as Anna would say, ’Do What Makes You Happy’.
Anna’s Garden will be published by Tiny Tree in March and released for pre-order on January 10th.
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