Julie Heaton

How do we talk about unspeakable events, allow our minds to process the hurt and find a way to live again? At first my making was about my conversation, my pain and my sadness. The marks were printed onto pristine white cotton organdy and hung in layers. And then this image happened, the print went through to the backing cloth, it was surrounded with marks left by others. I was learning, learning how to have a conversation and how the events of my past affect who I am and the choices I make.

Following traumatic loss, life changes forever. The body and mind can be overwhelmed by complicated feelings making it difficult to know who you are and what your place is in the world. Our lived experiences complicate this process, each life event affects how we understand what has has happened and informs the choices that we will make.

With my eyes closed, gentle contemplative touch is used to connect with what is going on inside my body and mind. Each mark is affected by how I feel, each layer impacted by the one that came before. The materiality of the line is more than a mark of form and place, it is a beautiful embodiment of the hurt and the pain that lies within.

When making the work, bottles of dye are wrapped in the fabric and transported home. The bottles leak, they fall over and they leave traces of colour behind. Life events affect who we. Some are happy, others sad, some memorable, others are easily forgotten. Some we can control, others we can not. My mono-prints are made with my eyes closed, the marks a response to what my hand can feel. The images made are printed onto a canvas where chance and occurrences affect the colours and the patterns made. 

I never know how much to say and where I should start. I never know how I will feel if the outcome is one that I did not expect. But I do know that talking through making will put me in a better place than if I had not begun at all.

Throughout my making I have taken risks. I have been guided by what happens and made decisions based on what I can see and what I can feel.

Our lives following traumatic loss are a constant flux of change. Our understanding of grief will never be fixed and we will never know if our enduring need to talk will be satiated by creative making. As an artist, I know that I cannot depend on this outcome. But, by making a start, I know that I will shake off the stigma that surrounds the word suicide and begin to break down the wall of silence. Slowly I am learning to integrate what has happened into my life so that it is a part of me, rather than the whole.

I was once terrified of thinking too deeply, talking too openly and creating too honestly, but doing so has been liberating. There is no right or wrong way to handle grief, our understanding is not fixed and it will change as we traverse its unpredictable path. Enduring traumatic loss does not stop you living or creating, it simply means that we will do them differently. Whilst the traumatic loss of my husband through suicide has been a constant factor in the thinking behind my making, art has helped me to survive and helped me to find hope.

I know that trauma affects us all differently, but I am certain that the desire is unanimous, to untangle the painful memories that haunt our souls, connect with an audience who will understand and charge one person to talk about how they feel.

Thank you to my tutors and peers at the Royal College of Art, who have nurtured and supported my voice throughout my Masters study, I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you to you, the viewer, for taking time to look at my work and engage with my conversation. Please do contact me if you have any further questions about my creative practice.