Warning: This story contains references to suicide. Please practice self-care in deciding whether and how to read or share it.
When Paul Mathisen’s original partner for the “Common Ground” project was unable to continue with her commitment, project collaborators didn’t have to look far to find a replacement. Stephen Perkins, a professional artist who has his own studio at the Spaaces gallery complex dropped by an early meeting to see what the project was all about and he and Paul hit it off immediately.
Stephen is a classically trained sculptor, painter and draughtsman who grew up on the east coast in a diplomatic family, where he was exposed to a wide range of cultural influences, particularly in Europe. He has taught for many years, specializing in figurative art, especially the instruction of ecorche, the timeless method of three-dimensional anatomical study.
As a child, Paul struggled with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, but from an early age, he discovered art was something he was good at. After leaving public school – where he wasn’t allowed to sign up for advanced art classes because of his learning challenges – he attended an upstate New York boarding school where he took every drawing and ceramics class offered. In college, he studied with the award-winning ceramicist, Marvin Sweet and, in clay, he found his true metier.
As they began to share more time and conversations together, Paul and Stephen realized that they had more in common than just the enjoyment of working with clay. Both have experienced relationship difficulties that sent them into emotional tailspins and Stephen shared that his brother, a Harvard Business School Graduate, had died by suspected suicide.
A difficult relationship with a woman in college sent Paul into deep depression he self-treated with alcohol, which eventually led to an attempt to take his own life. For Stephen, the end of his marriage several years ago, when his wife abruptly walked out, never to be heard from again, “hit me like a Mac truck.”
“I felt like I was floating in an empty sky, just nothingness,” he says.
For Paul, it was something called DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), a modified form of cognitive behavioral therapy that changes patterns by helping people identify the “triggers” that lead to suicidal thoughts and self harm, that set him on the road to recovery.
For Stephen, who refused friends’ entreaties to go to a therapist, it was multiple viewings of Ricky Gervais’s series, “After Life,” about a grieving widower, who contemplates suicide after losing his beloved wife to cancer.
“That was very cathartic to me,” Stephen says. “Somehow I knew I was not going to do that. It made me go inward.”
Just recently, Paul had heard several stories about people who had taken their own life. Though both he and Stephen had some reservations about incorporating the “taboo” topic into their “Common Ground” project — they ultimately decided they had an encouraging message to deliver.
“The last couple stories I’d heard, the person had no way to figure out how to get out of distress,” Paul says. “If you are able to reach out, you can figure out what you need.”
Ultimately, Paul threw three clay pots; Stephen, they decided, would draw the external artwork on two of them, and Paul on the third. Though they decided against using an ancient method to carve the decorative figures into the clay, the pots still have a timeless, historic feel.
One image shows a warrior with sword and shield; another a figure with knives in its back. There are visual references to betrayal (knives and rats), but also to hope (a woman balancing scales of justice) and strength. The image of a snake that wraps around the bottom of one pot and appears to be ready to swallow its own tail is a metaphor for the self-consuming threat of depression and psychosis.
For the third pot, as yet unadorned, Paul plans to use images from cards of the King and Queen of Hearts. The King holds a knife near his ear, intimating revenge or self-harm; the Queen holds a flower, implying peace and forgiveness. Below the figures, he plans to incorporate the words “Loss” and “Love.”
“If you just hang in there, the solution appears,” says Paul of dealing with mental health challenges. “It’s just a lot of ‘one day at a times.’ The reward is, at the end you’re a different person in a much better way.”
Adds Stephen: “That phrase, ‘if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger,’ is pretty true. I’m a completely different person than I was two years ago when I divorced.”
Then he adds, with a chuckle, “But I’m kind of hoping for no more personal growth anytime soon.”
All participants in “Common Ground,” including the collaborating organizers, are donating their time to the project. If you’d like to help with the expenses involved in art materials, promotion and exhibition costs, we welcome tax-deductible donations to the SPAACES Art Foundation (nonprofit EIN 84-500-4237). You can donate online at the SPAACES website (https://spaaces.art) or you can send a check to SPAACES, at 2087 Princeton St., Sarasota, FL 34237.
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