“SHOW AND TELL” BY LINDA LITTERAL
“Her road to the better place she’s in now was built on clay and wood; oil and acrylics; and pen, pencil and paper. It was built on the art that helped her heal from years of being sexually abused by her maternal grandfather.”
Karla Peterson, San Diego Union Tribune
“The information is expressed directly with the words Ms. Litteral uses but even more powerfully in the emotions expressed in her art.”
Robert L. Bray, PhD., LCSW
“A clear-eyed examination of life and personal trauma, this book accompanies an artist creating a healing path that cuts directly through pain to build a fulfilling life of generosity and truth. Using her intuition and creativity in navigating and challenging the forces that often pull one towards suffering or despair, Litteral chooses a journey that eventually leads to developing a new language and a new creative purpose. With a spirit of openness and exploration she manages to speak to and nurture the artist she has always been.
There are many important lessons for all of us in Litteral’s self-revelatory journey. One of which is the power of listening to and accepting your own story and the transformative power that comes with pursuing and using your own voice.”
Lynn Susholtz, artist and gallery owner: Art Produce
BUILDING A LIFE OF GENEROSITY AND TRUTH:
A PERSONAL MEMOIR
Linda Litteral is a survivor of incest and rape who used art to heal from the destruction to the body and spirit which comes from physical and sexual abuse. In this courageous memoir, Litteral shares the story of her abuse, spanning eight years of incest perpetrated by her grandfather, a rape she experienced in high school, and physical and verbal violence she suffered at the hands of her first husband. She offers an in-depth psychological profile of the effects of abuse, including silence, shame, invisibility, powerlessness, guilt, and difficulties with trust and identity. She also illustrates how the body remembers abuse through symptomatology like dissociation, anxiety, chronic illness, and other post-traumatic stress responses.
Yet Litteral has done more than survive her past—she’s found a way to thrive in the present. She generously catalogs all the healing modalities she has experienced in her decades of undoing the destruction of her past, including talk therapy, meditation, yoga, breathwork, Tai Chi, and somatic-based therapies like acupuncture, EMDR, sacral cranial therapy, and Thought Field Therapy. But it’s when Litteral discovers the power of creating and sharing her art that her healing journey begins in earnest. Accompanied by rich full-color images of her art in every chapter, Litteral shares stories about the creation of her pieces, their stunning symbology, and how they aided in her healing journey. Litteral is both an artist and an activist, a fierce champion for survivors, and an unabashed advocate for the healing power of art.
Jennifer Leigh-Selig Author, Publisher: Empress Publishing
Litteral works on clay in her San Diego studio.
Chapter 8 excerpt from page 59
The armor series is about trust: how I trusted my psychological constructs to protect me. How the process on between putting this perceived armor was a place that was safe within the abuse...
Chapter 7 excerpt from pages 51 and 52
It was a difficult project in that I had to look at my face over and over....they convey the guilt by hiding what is within. The glaze itself is like another mask, you cannot see the emotions or thoughts behind them. It is hiding what happened on one side and trying to expose it on the other.
Photo: Sandy Huffaker