Lynn Schimer’s work first comes to life as an invocation–it calls us immediately to attention. Its visual impulse is ferocious with its own existence. It is. I am. We are. These simple phrases are at once sacred and profane throughout Schirmer’s drawings and paintings. It is a chaos of beauty in which we dance; it is a chaos of beauty in which we are defiled. It is a chaos of beauty in which “we” takes on a whole new view.

Schirmer brings to light the anguish of divided and fragmented body, soul and spirit struggling to reclaim the inherent beauty of birth. She does this by refusing to look away from that which defines beauty–its opposite. The gesture of her drawings and paintings is triumphant. Its content is agonizing. We are drawn in by the beauty; we are repulsed by the defilement. Where they separate is often an illusion and Schirmer’s work masterfully explores the ambiguous territory of a self struggling to survive that which is not survivable, and surviving. This is art for grown-ups. It challenges us to look ourselves over inside and out. It challenges us to wake up to both the agony and the ecstasy of the soul as it struggles with the either, the or, and the holy both.

Schirmer is direct about acknowledging her experience as a DIDiva–a woman with Dissociated Identity Disorder born from the trauma of a tortured childhood. She is also direct about being an artist. Her consummate skill takes us on a precarious inner journey that starts and ends in triumph. Her work prevails. And so does she. And everything about that balance is ambiguous. Welcome to the world of a true artist.

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Janet Thomas is the author of The Battle in Seattle–The Story Behind and Beyond the WTO Demonstrations and Day Breaks Over Dharamsala–A Memoir of Life Lost and Found . She has written travel books, was the editor of SPA Magazine, and her plays have been produced nationwide. She teaches memoir writing in India and throughout the Northwest and lives on San Juan Island in Washington State.

Here is my Artist Statement for DIDiva & The Mirror Looks

The pieces in DIDiva & The Mirror Looks make up a loose collection of recent works, some of which refer to formative scenes, others to more contemporary scenarios.  What they have in common is that they are all snapshots of my internal reactions to particular events. The works are multi-figured because I am a container of multiple reactions, not only in a metaphorical sense, but also in an FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) verifiable sense.

I have a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). My paintings and drawings visually describe the process and consequences of extreme dissociation.

DID, or as it was formerly and most commonly known, Multiple Personality Disorder, (MPD) is the result of the repeated use of a defensive, disintegrated memory process, usually in response to repeated and/or severe trauma in early childhood. DID is a greatly misunderstood and overly sensationalized condition. In evidence of that fact I give you the most recent Hollywood abomination: The United States of Tara. Hollywood is always quick to exploit the anomalous and DID is particularly defenseless. The clinical community lies prone beneath political and social processes too complex to summarize in an artist statement (although a reductionist might label their driving force a criminal cover-up) and the lay public is woefully under or misinformed. I have even seen editors of prestigious news outlets conflate DID with schizophrenia.  These outrages are a few of the reasons I brought DIDiva to life, at least virtually. The Diva is an alter ego I adopted to help me do what little I could to combat the profligate stigma and misinformation surrounding the condition. Her main soapbox currently resides at the URL DIDiva.com, but she serves me well here too, as an ambassador, and perhaps interpreter.

If The Diva had one thing to say in this venue, it would be for viewers to consider that they share their community with numerous other DIDivas and that in most cases, they would not possess the skill to detect this reality.  Being informed then, is beneficial for all involved.  For those who remain unmoved at this point, feel deprived or even ill-used, go ahead and entertain yourselves. Count the personalities in my artwork; see if you can. I bet you can’t.

CoCA: Joseph Roberts, Anita (Intern from Poland), Ray C. Freeman, David Francis

Ken Marulis (right)

Joseph Roberts, Ian McFail

Willow Fox

Barb Noonan, Dan Hawkins