Inundated

   “Worry is a way to pretend that you have the knowledge or control over what you don’t…” (Solnit 165). My exploration of anxiety as a topic stemmed from my urge to understand my own anxiety better. During the beginning of my first year, I treated this project like scientific research and looked into scientific journals and studies to gather information about what the medical community labeled “generalized anxiety disorder.” I learned about the part of the brain called the amygdala which, among other functions related to emotional and behavioral processing, is responsible for processing fear and threatening stimuli. The stimuli trigger the amygdala to send messages to other parts of the brain in order to react. The idea of fight or flight comes from the amygdala’s response to perceived threats.
   My first body of work was created in Fall of 2018 to represent anxiety using the anatomical form of the amygdala. There was a study that discussed how there are more neurological connections to the amygdala in people who are diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I wanted the information I learned through my research to guide the composition of my drawings and started by searching for images of the amygdala with it’s connections. After not finding this, I decided to use the images I could find of the amygdala’s physical form as the basis for a sculpture. My process for this body of work that was titled Inundated (See Plate 1) included creating a sculpture to resemble the amygdala, then photographing the sculpture in black and white film, and finally drawing the image with white colored pencil and chalk pastel on black paper. All of these steps were initially meant to produce a drawing, however, each new medium utilized produced its own separate pieces. The sculpture inspired more sculptures created from porcelain clay. The black and white film photographs constituted their own piece (see Plate 2) and were also precursors to several “light drawings” created using photo paper, exposure to light, bleach and engraving using a knife (see Plates 3-5). The entire body of work created from this process maintained the high contrast of a black and white palette and the same form repeated throughout. I appreciated the aesthetic as it seemed to give the work an evidentiary feel, where the photographs, the sculptures and the light drawings all could have been a part of a scientific study. Though the images and sculpture were based on my understanding of a study, they carried a certain sense of authority that, in my mind, offered validity to the experiences of anxiety I was expressing. This was due in part to the fact that they were created with a verified study as the basis for the imagery and also to the stark nature of the media used.
   Throughout this period of time, I began meeting with Professor Inna Fishman in the Psychology Department at SDSU. Her role as a researcher in the Brain Image Lab on campus was what interested me most when seeking out an outside mentor because I felt that her access to actual images from the brain would provide answers to my many questions. The insight I gleaned from our conversations was much different from what I expected. I was hoping to learn about the specific parts of the brain responsible for disorders like anxiety, depression or ADHD, the processes and functions that created these mental states and what it looked like through imaging. Professor Fishman drew a picture of a world that was much more complicated than the simple cause and effect situation I was imagining. Even when the MRI or other types of imaging produced images of an event occurring in the brain, it was difficult to definitively state the reason behind the specific function or whether the physical part of the brain in view was the only variable at play. Although I was able to much better understand the connectivity and functions that take place in the brain as a result Professor Fishman’s translations of scientific jargon to everyday explanations, I realized that the same questions I had about the origins for complex emotions and mental states in the brain were the ones to which the psychological community still sought answers. A key piece of information that nudged my work in a new direction was that a major source of their data used in their research came from self-reported survey questions. In other words, the evidence they often valued and needed to study the brain came from the narratives and experiences as the patients perceived them.
   After many years of not trusting my own experiences with different mental states and emotions because of the lack of control I felt, it was reassuring to hear that these are the exact experiences that provide insight to the medical and scientific communities who are researching the way the mind works. This prompted me to turn the lens on myself and to create work about the mental states in my daily life.