Tasha Hitchon

A sculpture and mixed media artist, Tasha Hitchon met with me to discuss how her art practice helps her to explore the surreal, transcend struggle, and find a voice.  

Tell me about your creative practice?

For work that I have shown in galleries or put out into the world – it starts with a vision.  I have a vision and it can come to me when I’m awake… or while I’m walking or just staring at a wall. Sometimes it comes from an extremely vivid dream. It becomes all I can think about and I feel this great urge to create something. It’s like a seed that’s planted and it’s growing inside of me and I have to figure out how to get it out. The only exception is when I make art in an art therapy context. That work is created spontaneously and very different.

How do you realize the vision?

I don’t sketch I just have the images in my head and my hands just start to make something…it doesn’t really work for me to put it down on paper beforehand. I only sketched in art school…when it was mandatory!  I would sketch because I had too and I would do it after the work was created. I use whatever material speaks to me to realize the vision…it could be metal, stone, felt, clay, paper, or ink. Mainly I ‘m propelled by a strong need to get it out of my body. It feels like I am giving birth to something…I haven’t had a child, but I assume it’s a similar feeling.

What do you gain from your creative practice?

Resolution. There is a beginning and an end…a type of completion takes place and I find relief in that. Making the work is like a dream. I get into an altered state, obsessed with the completion and resolve of the project. It’s all that I can think about. In that state I often feel like I don’t have much control over the vision or the project. It’s like it’s coming through me. It’s a chance to take it into reality and share it with the world.

What’s the purpose of art making for you?

It’s an opportunity to share my story and have a voice. It’s a place where I know I have a voice. I want people to experience it and I encourage people to touch it or sit with it. Some of my sculpture projects or installations have included audio…when people come to the gallery and sit and listen they can really experience it as a story that repeats. I want to create an experience for people and I want people to allow themselves to have an experience with the work. 

How does your art practice help you understand yourself?

I feel like I’m stronger because of it. Like I’m part of this community and world, and that what I have to say and feel may be important. Often in my work there is conflict or an issue and the process helps me come to a place of understanding. I can get things out through that process. My work comes from such an emotional place and is really about that sense of resolve. When it’s finished things feel as though they make sense. To complete the work is to see the whole picture and understand my own puzzle. It often feels like a personal epiphany and I get a physical sense of change.  There’s a visceral relief. Sometimes it’s exciting to see that completion of thought. I never feel attached to my pieces afterwards....it’s like we've worked together, created something, and now we can go our separate ways. The journey is over.

How does art therapy help you?

I feel like it’s a different type of healing. The spontaneous artwork I create in art therapy opens up a different part of my subconscious. I think scarier more raw themes come out because I don’t have the time to edit or step back and think about it. Stuff comes up from deeper parts of my self ...it’s illuminating because you didn’t even know that it where there. The process and outcome is specifically about working through personal struggle and it’s a safe place for that exploration. It provides me with a voice for the really difficult stuff.  Often times I don’t even remember picking up the brush - I am in a state of madness that’s out of my control, or a kind of like a meditative state. What’s being made feels outside of itself- it’s like a collection of moments built up inside of me and then I let them go through the process. There is fear about what others think or how it will be understood. It’s purely for myself. For my own therapeutic healing. I have tried to incorporate some of the drawings from the art therapy into my formal art practice but they are so different that I haven’t figured out how to meld them together.