This question defines my interest in human psychology and my interest in the subject of Migraine Art. Working on this commission I combined my studies in psychology with my passion for painting.
The project started when I was asked to illustrate the image of a migraine headache from verbal descriptions of symptoms and visualizations given by others.
A medical specialist verbally described many visual aspects of migraine pain to me. Asking questions such as how a migraine starts, what triggers the pain, what a person feels or wants to do during the migraine, etc., helped me understand what migraine pain is.
I also interviewed people who suffered from migraines. I asked them to describe how they visually perceive their pain. Some of the artwork in the series is based on those stories. And some pieces are a combination of what I learned from my interviews and my personal understanding of this phenomenon.
Portraying what another person feels without experiencing the symptoms myself was challenging and exciting. I am often asked “how can you create art so graphically depicting various types of migraine pain, do you have migraines yourself?” I answer, “I don’t have migraines. And I believe that this is an advantage. I am not comparing what I hear from others with personal knowledge, this way my own experiences are not “getting in a way” of the creative process.”
The focus of the project was to show people who suffer that they are not alone and to help people who don’t have migraines understand what a migraine is. By visually combining experiences of those who suffer, documenting them in a visually accessible form, the art that you see now was created.
I feel fortunate that I was asked to work on this project. I have received positive feedback from migraine suffers and from the medical professionals in the field:
"Thank you for what you are doing. You are such a wonderful instrument for those who suffer from pain. Your art is beautiful and inspirational. I posted a site last week for those suffering from pain to post poems, artwork, stories, imagery and other creative coping mechanisms. WE all need a voice as we suffer in silence. I suffer from RSD/CRPS in my leg and foot and know how important it is to feel like others understand.”
"I appreciate you allowing us to use your picture of a migraine for our upcoming Northeast Florida Medicine issue on pain management, for which I am a guest editor. The picture graphically depicts migraine misery...."
"I admired your artwork in downtown Madison lately, after reading about it in the Capital Times. I am a pediatric neurologist with longtime interest in headache art. As you can see from the enclosed article, I have recently published the results of a study having children draw their headaches are like. I had them use pencil and paper only and the results were dramatic. I can also get a sense of psychological factors, coping strategies, and self-esteem from the artwork.”
”… I am intrigued by your incredible artwork! You can totally get inside of my head, literally, and understand the pain and magnitude; the aura, the swaying, all of it, so well. I have often longed to have the ability to put it so well on canvas or a wall at home; as you seem so easily have done here. … In any regard, I do find your work eerily familiar.”
