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.