DAVE MacDONALD, LCSW
Artist: I am an artist whose life has been indelibly marked by my experiences of growing up in a family deeply touched by multi- generational trauma. My artwork attempts to reflect the integration of my personal experience as well as that which I have learned from decades of studying trauma and sitting with others who have borne unbearable burdens.
Psychotherapist: I’m a Clinical Social Worker with a specialty treating adult survivors of trauma. Psychotherapy, a relational process, shares many similarities with the Blacksmith's relationship to the metal being forged...where moments of resistance, bracing and overwhelm may yield and open into a space where the mind & body will soften, reveal and transform what had been deeply hidden inside. My practice as a psychotherapist has been forever enriched by the physical, mental and emotional experience of being a Blacksmith.
My Process: My basic process involves heating metal in a fire and forming it by hand employing the tools and techniques used by Blacksmiths for thousands of years: Forge, Hammer and Anvil. I recycle metals and sometimes incorporate found items into my art. My work is hand finished, usually leaving some of the natural patina created when metal is heated to forging temperature. I typically apply multiple layers of a hard wax. Each piece is one-of-a-kind.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to learn from world class Blacksmiths. Along my way, I’m discovering my own artistic voice, expressed through the medium of metals wrought by my own hand. Sometimes this voice screams furiously in rage and suffering, at other times it is immobilized, frozen and mute. Perhaps it may also whisper cautiously of hope and light...but ALWAYS it is wanting to communicate... ALWAYS it is trying to reveal and transform what had been hidden inside.
Small Cenotaph for an Unbearable Burden
(Forged and Fabricated Steel, Patina, Acrylic Finish, 10” x 14” x 4.5”)
A small acknowledgement of the innumerable lives derailed, damaged and lost to trauma and PTSD.