Essencia Media: Confronting the Troll

WARNING: Cross at your own peril. A troll lurking under the bridge may jump out to"scare you straight" and exact a toll. His tax can be weighty, for when he lurches from hiding and gives us his evil eye, most of us are fearful of confronting him. (Note: There are no girl trolls.)

Thanks to artists in Seattle's Fremont area who have constructed a gigantic cement troll under the Aurora Bridge, we can now actually lay hands on that metaphor for our fears. However, standing before him and finding that he cannot harm us in his physical state does not relieve us of many of the trolls in our lives that are hard to control.

In spontaneous unscripted interviews, eleven women living in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia reveal on the recently released, independently produced DVD Confronting the Troll - Women Honor the Creative Impulse what they understand the creative impulse to be and what happens when they are prevented from creating.

Some of the barriers to creating are the need to give time to supporting themselves financially instead of working their art; justifying their work to jealous husbands or significant others; attempting to work around some of society's taboo subjects; trying to quiet those voices, real or imagined, demanding, "You can't write/paint/sculpt/practice today!"

These stressors can result in depression; overeating and other compulsive disorders; anxiety; anger; a sense of loss of personal value; and even disease.

Many clients of Seattle psychotherapist and writer Susan S. Scott seek her help in overcoming the disabling influences that prevent or "block" them from creating. Dr. Scott, in Confronting the Troll, tells us, "I have literally never seen anyone healthy if they have turned their back on the inner self.... It's almost as though in the refusal to follow what's deeply inside someone leaves a vacuum or hole... Sometimes only here in this room [can they] say what it is that's true, even if it is in a despairing voice that has to come forth about a sadness of not being able to get to the work. That, at least, is the expression of the truth, which I feel very strongly is the creative urge: to tell the truth of the soul."

Few understand just why they do what they do. "I don't know why I should be the one doing this, but I am," says Margaret Hixon, former Oregon college English instructor and documentary filmmaker. Now living in New Zealand, she has written a biography of the late Queen Salote of Tonga.

She's not alone in her puzzlement. "Between twice and a dozen times a day, I think of giving up," says Sandra Shotlander, a Melbourne, Australian playwrite in mixed despair and humor. "There are times when I say that over and over, 'I did not choose writing; it chose me.'"

Tina Hoggatt of Washington state decided not to focus on writing, instead to become a painter, "Who could find fault with that? Little did I know."

But they persist because, as Robyn Stone, a Sydney, Australian travel and screenwriter says, "I think it's very important that artists are aware of their social responsibilities [because]... it's patently obvious that ideas, thoughts, shape our society very strongly."

Confirmation of how we are historically affected comes from Alice Walker biographer Evelyn C. White, "Women and minorities, we always struggle with self-censorship... We have internalized so much self-hatred about who we are and what we think and what we feel... . It can be very, very risky to talk about the things that hurt us." But facing the troll and becoming bigger than he is can lead to leaving a lasting work. White's reaction on seeing a copy of her book, The Black Women's Health Book on a library shelf said, "And so it's just a great, great, you know, feeling when so much the message is that you don't contribute anything. To have something concrete and tactile that you can look at and say, 'Yes. I did this. I did this with the help of other black women, for black women.' Nobody can say that we don't care about each other, that we don't do anything, you know, for each other. So it's very uplifting."

Seemingly ordinary women, these eleven artists are extraordinary in their sensitivity and determination to embrace and honor the creative process despite the menaces that may be encountered from without and within. They are neither embracing living in poverty nor waiting for a wealthy benefactor to validate their work. They just do it.