Defining Community Through Symbolic Artmaking

Now that Pride Month is within (brick-)throwing distance, I’ve begun my yearly reflection on what queerness means. Its meaning usually oscillates between societal rebellion and personal expression, the enactment of my being as a political statement versus the projection of my true, inner self. Perhaps because of my recent establishment as a mental health practitioner, or perhaps due to the current and planned socio-political regression on LGBTQ+rights facilitated by our presidential administration, the central theme of my relationship with queerness this year is Community. I feel pulled away from a self-centered and -identity mindset into one that promotes togetherness, that feeling of being part of a whole; after all, one can barely refer to the term LGBTQ+ without adding Community immediately after.

But this, of course, begs the question: What is Community? If you ask 100 different folks what it means, you may get about 115 different answers. One may define Community simply as a group of people of shared identities and interests. A queer person may say that their chosen family, or other queer and non-queer people to whom they are close and serve in the traditional, archetypal family roles, is their Community. Still, Community could refer to a collection of multiple families who all rent apartments in a typical Chicago red-brick three-flat. We can begin to use words and terminology so often that it loses actual meaning over time, leaving us with static, stereotyped traces of what it used to mean. 

As an eclectic therapist who implements some Adlerian philosophy, my first instinct is to define Community more broadly and in two distinct yet complementary parts: social interest (more or less, the drive to belong to and interact with groups of others) and community feeling (the felt sense of togetherness). Alfred Adler, the titular founder of Adlerian theory, described this pairing as gemeinschaftsgefuhl. While, for me, this working definition of Community is understandable, it still feels quite esoteric and too abstract for folks who don’t have the time or, frankly, interest to devote two years of their lives to studying the concepts and implementation of therapeutic theories; therefore, this definition is inaccessible. So, again, I ask: What is Community?

I decided to turn to artmaking to find my answer. Further, I chose to outline my process here to document and display what an in-session art intervention may look like to communicate one way that art therapy works. Before using any art interventions in therapy sessions, I consider what their purpose is or what I feel would facilitate therapeutic momentum for the person sitting across from me. To this end, I turn to the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC). This seven-pronged tool assists in sorting out various media and biopsychosocial phenomena into different dimensions, such as Sensory, Affective, and Symbolic. Because I’m trying to understand better what a term means to me, I decide to utilize the Symbolic dimension of the ETC, which involves using images and intrapersonal symbology (at the risk of using the term in its definition) to generate and convey meaning. As I will mainly work within the Symbolic dimension, I will use paint markers as my art medium because said medium boasts inherent fluidity and rigidity, which lend themselves well to the Symbolic component.

Now that I’ve thought about which framework and medium I’ll use in my artmaking, I now close my eyes and consider the word Community. In this step, I am paying special attention to what mental images are produced in response to the word and what sensations are occurring in my body. I firmly believe that emotional and cognitive experiences do not solely reside in the mind but permeate different parts of our physical being– after all, the mind is a part of and, thus, really inseparable from our body. Once I undergo this process of considering, imagining, and sensing, I will jot down some quick notes on this experience to use in my art.

The first image that my mind visits after thinking of Community is of a drag show. In my personal and artistic viewpoint, drag is a vital and profound part of how I enact and interact with my and others’ queerness. Specifically, I picture a beautiful, resplendent drag artist on stage under bright lights, reciprocally generating and being nourished by energy from their rallying audience. As this scene plays out in my head, I notice where I feel sensations in my body. I feel my eyes widen as I try to take in the performer's artistry onstage. Similarly, my heart opens up, and warmth erupts from its center throughout my arteries and blood vessels. I name this sensation Shared Experience. I notice my arms begin to feel restless, as though they must move in response to what the drag artist is doing, while my legs feel firmly planted, indicating I feel excited yet safe. Lastly, my mouth opens up into a broad smile, feeling driven to express the pure joy of queer liberation verbally and physically. Once the scene has played out, I quickly scribble a few notes on a notecard to remember this experience's key points. Then, I get to work.

I begin by considering the key figures that visually arose in the scene. The primary component of the picture was a drag performer, so, using a black paint marker, I paint a simple yet exaggerated person with large hair and a flouncy dress in the top middle section of the page. I depict her standing on a small stage, leading her to take up nearly half of the page. When thinking about the rest of my internal image of the scene, the rest of what I remember experiencing was based on sensation rather than imagery. Still, I want to represent these sensations to convey my feelings effectively. 

With that in mind, I depict my physical responses to the drag performer as body parts of multiple audience members. Throughout the scene, I remember having an overwhelming sense of togetherness. I draw four eyes in the bottom third of the page, horizontally placed next to each other. Within each eye’s iris, I draw the pupil in the shape of a heart. I paint a large mouth below each eye, open wide, just like how I felt as the scene played out. I pause and consider how I want to show togetherness better– being next to each other is not nearly enough to display a group. These figures are excited, transfixed at the fabulous performer in front of them; therefore, I draw their arms up cheering, and– for the figures next to one another– they hold hands in union. To make the figures even gayer, I draw arches connecting each above their eyes. These arches will later become rainbows once I get to coloring in my art. Instead of bodies, I leave space between the figures’ arms and legs. To depict the warmth that I felt emanating from my chest, I want to use this space as points of light similarly emanating from their cores.

Now, it's time to add some color to my art! I choose a bright pastel palette from my paint markers for the audience members. I want to use these figures to express individuality yet communion, their whole being greater than the sum of their parts. To cement this idea, I use alternating colors for their pupils and irises, causing them to be unique combinations yet to correspond with one another. I then fill in the rainbow and refrain from separating the colors with a thin black line. While, thematically, I would typically opt-in to show the black line, I feel like leaving it out better reaches my goal of togetherness. The figures are filled in yet still incomplete, for the emptiness in their chest areas reads more as voids rather than light. I respond by pulling out my metallic paint markers and drawing light rays orbitally emanating from their center. The color I use and the directionality of the strokes accurately represent the warmth I experienced.

I decide to use metallic colors in the drag figure. While she is also a part of the whole, she must sparkle in a way that would draw out such a reaction from her audience. To contrast the warmth erupting from the figures, my drag performer is painted using cooler colors: blue, green, and purple. She’s grand and needs to be showcased appropriately, so I paint golden spotlight beams from the ceiling above her. Still, she doesn’t nearly sparkle enough! I use a silver metallic color to draw sparkles from her being and excited lines from her glow and from the stage lights below her.

With everything colored in, I take a moment to take in the gestalt of my piece. I notice emptiness on either side of the drag figure. Her personality is larger than life, yet she is shrunk inside the emptiness. I turn to the notes I took when I imagined this scene and come across the phrase Shared Experience. This term strikes me as being accurately summative of what I got from this entire experience. Using the same rainbow metallic markers I used to complete the drag performer, I wrote SHARED on the left side of the page and EXPERIENCE! on the right. And, just like that, my artwork is complete.

Upon viewing my art, I can better understand my conceptualization of Community. I feel the exuberance of the colors working with one another. I see the pure joy that is reciprocal not only between the individual members of the audience but between the audience and the performer. The performer is practicing the queer tradition of drag, a longstanding LGBTQ+ archetype with a rich history and meaning to our people. Drag as an art form inherently creates Shared Experience– the performer puts on a show that involves songs and movements that mean something, and the audience flocks to the show and latches onto every moment. In this way, my artwork tells me how I understand Community through the lens of drag performance and queer embodiment: Community is a group of individuals linked by shared experience(s) who support one another through accomplishments/life events, large emotions, and celebrations/observances of their identities.

Does the process of this therapeutic artmaking experience connect with you? Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Eme Swaggthorne, ATR-P by e-mailing Eme@SnowLakeCounseling.com or by contacting them through our website portal. Further, if you are interested in joining Eme’s Virtual LGBTQ+ Process Group starting in late June, visit our website to learn more!

Article by: Eme A. Swaggthorne (They/Them), ATR-P