Art heals pain of eating disorder

Sara Yates, 21, has put together a show that celebrates body diversity and poses with a piece of her work included in the show at the Fine Arts Center at Salem College. photo.

Sometimes pain goes too deep for words.

Sometimes sorrow and guilt and grief can be better expressed in clay or on canvas.

The art exhibition “Love Your Body” was born of pain, the pain Sara Yates felt as she fought anorexia. Art helped her heal. 

Last April, she came up with the idea of holding an art show with works specific to eating disorders. As word got around and she talked to more people, she decided that the show needed to speak to body issues in general. The works now on display in the South Corridor Gallery of the Fine Arts Center at Salem College also include pieces that deal with sexual abuse, breast cancer and disability.

Some explore struggles; others show hope. Some simply spotlight the beauty of diverse body types. Yates has also developed a series of activities to complement the show.

The exhibit will run through Nov. 4.

Yates’ pieces express feelings she couldn’t put into words. She carried a series of self-portraits, displayed in the show as one big art piece, in the trunk of her car for more than a year.
“It was too painful to look at,” she said. “To put it up in the show gave me sort of a queasy feeling.”

The portraits show drawn faces. One is screaming. One shows a head filled with apologies, with variations of “I’m sorry” repeated over and over.

She used gutter guard in another piece to shape an armorlike bust wearing a skirt formed with crepe paper streamers and tape measures dotted with lengths of chain dangling numbers. The piece represents both the protection and entrapment of an eating disorder, she said.

A third piece, emblazoned with the word freedom, shows birds about to take flight from a woman’s head. “It’s about recovery,” she said. “A lot of it is freeing your head. It’s the mindset more than the body. The body is kind of dragged along.”

Information on eating disorders is often sensationalized, Yates said. People get the idea that anorexia is a choice fueled by vanity, of people trying to look fashionably thin. A thin body is a side effect of anorexia, Yates said, not the cause.

For Yates, who developed anorexia when she was away at college, controlling what she ate and exercising constantly was her way of checking out of a situation she didn’t want to be in. She is now 21 and a junior at Wake Forest University.

Yates, 21, said she has conquered the health issues that accompanied her anorexia, and her weight stands within a healthy range. But she still struggles.

“It’s still in my head.”

Patti Patridge is a licensed professional counselor in private practice who specializes in eating disorders. Patridge said that one of the hallmarks of an eating disorder is having difficulty expressing emotions with words and with connecting with one’s body. “So for someone who is so inclined, art or any kind of creative outlet can be very beneficial as an alternative way expression.”

A show such as “Love Your Body,” Patridge said, creates a sense of camaraderie among those who have been able to express themselves through art. “It’s easy for someone with an eating disorder to feel very alone with it. I think an exhibit like this one can help people recognize they’re not alone.”

The theme of “Love Your Body” helps promote acceptance of all body shapes and sizes, Patridge said, in a culture that can be punitive toward people with diverse types of bodies.

Judith Shaw, a yoga teacher who lives in St. Louis, became an artist while under treatment for anorexia. She contributed several pieces to the show, including plaster casts of feet and a pair of her old jeans, size 0, stuffed with clothes she wore when she was much too thin. She made the feet after her disease so weakened her that she fell twice and broke bones. Her feet could no longer support her, she said.

Shaw, 54, developed anorexia as she tried to distance herself from a family that she felt didn’t love her.

“To avoid the disappointment of being rejected by them, I could just make myself disappear,” she said. She dealt with her eating disorder for about 15 years.

“I started out with what I thought was healthy eating. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. That kind of comes with the territory of the illness. If low fat is good, no fat must be better. If moderate exercise is good, excessive exercise must be better.

“I kept taking everything to an extreme.”

She moved from her native New York to St. Louis to undergo treatment. Although she is no longer in treatment, she remains in St. Louis, where she takes advantage of a good support system. People with other addictions can often avoid the things they are addicted to, she said.

“But with food, you have to eat every day. There are issues you face over and over and over again. It’s nice to have people help you move through those.”

Laura Frazier’s pieces in clay are reminiscent of the shape of a vagina. Frazier, 46, was sexually violated at an early age, she said. Her work represents reclaiming that part of her body.

“That’s very important to me.”

The shape of overlapping circles that form her images has fascinated her for years, she said. “It’s like a recurring dream.”

Like many of the artists represented in the show, Frazier is self-taught. Only about a quarter of the pieces were done by professional artists, Yates said. She admires the honesty of the artists who reveal so much in their work. When she started planning the show, she gave participants the choice to present their work anonymously.

“Nobody chose to do that,” she said.

Members

Username

Password

Auto-login on future visits

Forgot your password?
Register

What's happening

Add Event Advanced