About my Work
Children are not born with a unified sense of self. They are, however, born with an innate ability to detect when they are being harmed. When they are faced at early stages of development with overwhelming or life threatening experiences, especially at the hands of caregivers, the normal integrated function of safe attachment is impossible and so a disordered and non-integrated, or dissociative response results.
My relationship to my body is the result of such a disordered process. I have never really fully inhabited it.
The figures in my work represent aspects of myself not yet integrated into a working whole of personality. They each have their experience of the world, relationships to each other, and feelings about what is essentially a shared body. For most of them the body is a danger zone, it is enemy territory. Entering it is a huge risk.
Our trajectories should lead towards cohesiveness and healing. The brain wants to repair itself; the heart desires more than anything else, safe, intimate attachment. I feel that want daily, with an almost unspeakable acuteness, but I haven't managed to overcome my dissociation. So you see in my work the only place where it feels safe to inhabit the body. You see me there, in my varied incarnations, looking back at you, the viewer. I am as vulnerable on paper and canvas as it is possible for me to be.
Biography
I have an extraordinary personal history, the details of which are almost guaranteed to invite incredulity. I am a survivor of torture and medical experimentation, beginning in childhood, both private and tax-funded. By exhibiting my artwork, I hope to raise awareness about these ongoing, yet widely unexposed human rights abuses committed against children and adults here in the US and other Western nations.
There is a great deal of revealing biographical information on a personal site I maintain at LynnsArt.net, and in the statement I read at my Seattle City Hall exhibition in 2015, and on the Franklin & madeline exhibition pages.
Interview
If you want a short introduction to my history, listen to my interview with Gemma Hoskins of the Netflix documentary The Keepers, and investigator Shane Waters. We explore my connection to the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik.
Listen to "S2 Ep45: Sister Cathy, A Survivor's Account – Unveiling MKUltra, Part 1" on Spreaker.
Listen to "S2 Ep46: Sister Cathy, A Survivor's Account – Unveiling MKUltra, Part 2" on Spreaker.
Day Job - Web Development & Design
I designed and hand coded this website. For 20 years, I've designed and developed websites, and digital and print marketing materials for individuals and organizations, including artists and arts non-profits. Today, I develop computer programming curriculum, and I teach. I am blessed to be able to encourage and inspire the programmers of the future.