Psychic shelter

What is psychic shelter? It is a place where I do not have to make a decision if I don't want to. It's a place of possibilities, and though there is no immediate pressure to go one way or another, there is the sense that something will happen. It's not a predictable outcome but it's quite acceptable, and in the meantime I can stay here to feel the mechanics of the parts at work. I can approach the space at a speed that matches the unfolding of the scene as I take in the parts. I am not in danger, I am not bored, and I do not have the answers. I am part of the picture, giving witness to something I am not otherwise privy to. This comforts me. One of the first paintings I made that I can positively call psychic shelter, was on a small piece of flooring, and was of a rectangular building, with a low pitched roof, and a single open door. The building sat on a slightly raised platform in the centre ground fairly far away, on an open plain with a range of mountains in the distance. Colours were overall warm. I called it 'Giving My Father Shelter'. My dad, a foster child, teen soldier in WW2, and immigrant to Canada could be gruff and given to stony silences, deeply puzzling me. I loved him. Since that painting I have painted structures, and scenes to house, or hold feelings that are perhaps uncomfortable, close by, familiar and unknown to me, yet there. In this way a space is given to some vague thing, and there is recognition, which is a relief. There are other indiscernible things in the back ground keeping peace. I wonder if what might arise in feelings can cancel eachother out. Having an image come to me, always of a space for something to be, presents a chance to discover and hopefully redeem. The image comes with a feeling, though maybe its the other way around, the feeling has an image? The act of painting itself, the rhythmic movement, the subtle blending of colours, emerging shapes, give form to that first image, but its not right if the feeling is not there. The feeling/image holds all the things that are not here, things that I miss. Grieve. More psychic shelter for the love left behind for what has been lost. In therapy the first thing the therapist must establish with the client is a safe space, in order to build trust, as without trust there can be no therapy. In art therapy, the object of creativity (with therapist there maintaining the boundaries, and grounding the client) is the safe space. The creative process is where feelings are allowed and not judged. What the process does and objects made in art therapy is offer psychic shelter for the pain that is being released.