Paint The Pig

My daughter asked if she could share the following for the December paper. Not only is she the best daughter I could hope for, she is a brilliant social worker, a talented artist, and a young woman who battles depression and anxiety. She knows the value of mixing colors, molding her clay, creating beautiful and imaginative floral scenes, while expressing her most personal self. We encourage you to gather some supplies, then paint, sculpt, draw, weave, or carve your red pig. We promise you will feel better.

The ground was soggy and the air was thick. The Indonesian dirt was being disturbed by boots for the first time. The archeologist who owned them could feel it in the way the ground gave out beneath his feet. He was searching for evidence of prehistoric human existence and he was going to find it in this hidden cave overlooking a rice paddy field.

He knew he would find something, but would it be a stone tool submerged in the mud or something as simple as a carving that only something with thumbs could have etched? It was neither. He was already convinced his efforts had been wasted when he saw it high up on the back wall. A massive, red pig painted on the stone with two human hands outlined above it.

It was all the proof he needed. Proof he was not the first person to walk through this hidden cavern in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Someone existed here and he was going to find out when.

They said it had to have been around 51,000 years ago. Someone, long before you or I existed, felt the need to create something. Something that served no purpose other than to say, “I am here and this is what I’ve seen.”

But, why? Why do human beings feel the need to paint, carve, sculpt, weave, trace, sing, dance, etc.?
Human nature is complex, and that complexity induces intricate feelings that need to be processed. By allowing a concept, our emotions, to evolve into something tangible that can be experienced by our senses, the opportunity to process these emotions arises. Now instead of just feeling our feelings, we are able to hold them in our hands, examine every crevice, listen to the intensity of what is being felt within our bodies, and share them with others, if we choose.

Billions of human beings have existed throughout history, and only a fraction of them are remembered. Yet, there is an urge existing within all of us to create something memorable. Whether it be a legacy passed down through our children, or our paintings experienced 51,000 years from now. Within our children and the art we create, we are saying, “Once upon a time I existed, and although I am now gone, a piece of me remains.”

Remembering our past selves is also a tool which can be used to process our emotions. Examining the art we made, and remembering how we felt 10 years ago, helps us acknowledge how far we’ve come, the work which still needs to be done, and the good and bad of what we have endured. Taking what we see in ourselves and the world around us, bottling it up, and letting it sit unchanged allows future beings and our future selves to find meaning in what was once just sadness, or just a pig. In documenting our feelings through art we are providing an opportunity for these future beings and our future selves to say, “What I’m feeling has been felt before. I am not alone.”

Creating art makes us human. We are not birds creating intricate nests, dances, and songs solely for the function of finding a mate and creating life. We are human beings feeling deep emotions which must be taken out of us, must be turned into art, and must be remembered. It is not only our purpose to create art, but it is our responsibility. Not only should you paint the pig, you have to.