STEPHANIE Nuño

“The arts are a special form of communication that has an integrative function – integrating and uniting the members of social groups but also integrating individuals selves, and selves with the world” (Turino 3).

“Our work is inevitably infused with us – our visions, our dreams, our beliefs, our fears, our doubts and our voice. Not only do we teach who we are, we reveal who we are in the art we create. Without recognizing these two things, both are unattainable” (Henderson 2). Without allowing for that sense of vulnerability, our work and art are empty. As artists and educators, we often give all of what we have, everything that we are, to our students and our art. In hindsight, it is clear this is an unhealthy way of being. In fact, it is the exact opposite of being; it is floating above never rooting, never landing anywhere. However, in practice, this feels like the only way to survive. All that is happening is disservice to our students and our work.

I have spent much of my life struggling with balance – stuck somewhere between others wants and my own needs, walking blindly along someone else’s path trying to make it my own. Never giving enough to any part of me, each piece suffering silently from the lack of attention; compartmentalizing who I am into neatly organized labels “prescribed” (Ling) by others, absorbed by me into my “social imaginary” (Ling). Somewhere along the way, I lost myself forgetting that “we are the sum of our parts” (Fels). By reconnecting with my personal sense of creativity and practice, I am beginning to rediscover who it was that went missing.

This journey, for me, has been emotional, inspiring, thoughtful, and self-seeking; self-centered in the best way. Never more have I considered what it is that I want and who I want be. I started not knowing what to call myself stumbling over my own introduction – sharing only fragments, one mask at a time. It is in my search for “…[my] true face (character, potential), [my] heart (soul, creative self, true passion), and [my] foundation (true work, vocation)” (Cajete 23) that I have begun to better understand who I am. Guided by the principals of presence, surrender, and identity, I have firmly landed in the discipline (Kelly) of breath and of dreams. I am finding solitude in the spaces between. I am finding groundedness in the unknown. I am finding inspiration in vulnerability. I am finding me.