Trauma & Bad Experiences

When you’ve had a bad experience, you sometimes feel compelled to recreate it in a way that allows you to control it. It’s like you’re attracted to the very thing that bothered you because you’re not done with it- you need to fix that moment so you can move forward. Oscar Wilde said, ‘a burnt child loves the fire.’ For me, that means being attracted to explore things that have been traumatic or you’re not so sure about. The sources of terror in childhood can become sources of attraction in adulthood. Or, in the case of an artist, inspiration.Art is a good vehicle for figuring things out for yourself, a tool for walking through a situation in your mind that you keep separate from the anxieties of reality. There’s something about making photographs that allows you to act out your story and make it visible