If eyes are the window to the soul, then a masquerade mask frames these portals. Eyes transform into mystical moorings when peering out through a mask. We find this inexplicable desire to venture inside the mind of the masked artist to discover why she creates.
The artistic person frames her soul’s windows with various art forms, and then invites viewers to embark on a journey. If we accept the invitation, we venture into mystical realms. We find ourselves wondering, What compelled her to make this creation? Yet, we can only go as far into the artist’s secret place as she invites us to go.
Yet, the greater adventure the artist entices us to take is to face our own dark muses. If we dare to journey into our souls, we will confront the pleasures and pain resident there; we will wrestle with our craving for unconditional love that drives us to create in order to medicate our grief or mask our lack.
A visual of this journey into an artistic soul can be found in a scene from the Phantom of the Opera. In the midst of misty waters, the Phantom forces Christina to board a boat that takes her on a journey. Christine’s anxiety grows as he rows the boat further into his underground hide away.
Once there, she confronts the truth about her muse; he is merely an impostor posing as her deceased father. She see’s the Phantom’s tortured soul fleshed out in material form: the mirror symbolizes his vanity, only possible when a mask hides his gnarled face; the closet, flush with his desire for unconditional love with a mannequin replica of Christine clothed in a wedding dress hidden inside; the bed, his tortured, unmet passion driving him to control another.
It is there in the Phantom’s chamber that Christine realizes she can break free from her dark muse; she doesn’t need him in order to release her gift of song. She rises up and does the unthinkable. She tears off his mask and exposes his shame. She repudiates his confession of love that masks his control. She agitates his compulsion to overpower her. In the end, she escapes his inner madness, and in doing so, severs from her muse, the dark angel who she believed gave her the gift of song.
When we journey into our soul and confront our dark muses, we see those areas of injury that drive us to create. Perhaps, like Christine, we long for an absentee father. Maybe we relate with the Phantom, a social outcast driven to find purpose and acceptance through our art, writing, or music. Whatever dark muse drives us, self-reflection will reveal its form. The artist who embraces the reasons she creates will transform her wrestlings into artistic expressions. She will wean off of dependency upon those dark muses and turn her misery into something beautiful.
In my journey as an artist, I have repeatedly experienced how creating art has transformed personal struggles into beautiful creations. Making something has helped me to process and provided emotional release. Creating art has helped me to transfer dependency upon dark muses to the Creator of all who provides the inspiration and empowerment to do what He has created me to do. He is my true muse.
Sometimes an artist dares to expose her vulnerability: those situations and people, problems and pain, agony and joys that inspired her artistic creations. Whether or not she exposes them, trust me, they are there.
The soul of an artist is fascinating and complex. Imagine a hidden place with a mix of magical phantoms and skeleton-filled closets. The intrigue? Like the mind behind the mask, you never know what you will find.
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