COMBINATION LOCK

Ricco/Maresca Gallery
Jun 22, 2020 8:35PM
Abigail Frankfurt
Elephant, 2020
Ricco/Maresca Gallery

BY ABIGAIL FRANKFURT

I was not properly medicated until I was 42 years old. Before finding the right cocktail of medication my manic state presented as aggressive. I had no impulse control and I was extremely violent. I harmed myself and I harmed others. I had blackouts after bursts of rage. I lived with anxiety and constantly had panic attacks that depleted me. I would sink into suicidal depression for weeks. Weeks of not bathing, not eating, not answering the phone. Obsessing over how to kill myself.

When it passed, I felt like an alien on the street. I was severely paranoid, I had auditory hallucinations that brought me to tears. I was dissociated from myself, my voice, the world.

Abigail Frankfurt
Absolutely CooCoo, 2019
Ricco/Maresca Gallery

I couldn’t hold down a job. I was on disabilities—I never thought my depression could do this to me. When I was able to get some part-time work, I took out a loan and went to grad school. I would cry and shake from anxiety. One teacher told me to get shock treatment. Another said I was in the wrong program. My confidence in my creative abilities sank.

I wasn’t in the wrong program—I was on the wrong medication. A woman with the same illness suggested I see her psychiatrist. I rode the train to the Upper West Side. I cried and asked for transcranial magnetic stimulation. He suggested I try lithium first. He created a medley of two different medications in the morning and three others before bed. It took a month or so until they kicked in. I could breathe again.

Abigail Frankfurt
You Can Or Can You, 2019
Ricco/Maresca Gallery
Abigail Frankfurt
Atomic, 2018
Ricco/Maresca Gallery

I started making collage on notebook covers during class as a coping skill. I collaged my coffee table during a stressful period. Once, I covered an entire door. I covered a full-length mirror with cutups and gouache. I hung canvas on the wall by my bathroom—when I passed it, I would stop and stare at empty spaces. Still myself and find pictures or words to beautify it.

The movement of my hands over the surface of book covers, glass, tabletops calms me like a mindfulness skill. It is a coping skill that seemed to stem intuitively from distress. My mind wants to take care of my mind. I talk to the images. I play with them like Barbie dolls. I ask them what do they want to wear? Where do they want to go? I am able to give myself permission to make mistakes. I move my hands until my mind softens—until the hard edges of anxiety and auditory intensity quiet. My doctor says it is like wrapping gauze around my brain—gives me some extra padding.

Abigail Frankfurt
Suburban World,, 2019
Ricco/Maresca Gallery

There is no plan and there are no lies. My ego—is asleep—I am in the moment—in a trance. The repetition of paint brush strokes. The shredding of different types of paper – I am no longer thinking, I am doing, and I am not even thinking about that.

When I make my collages, I feel safe because the collage—whether it’s an alien abduction or a gumball machine filled with eyeballs—the collage knows me-does not judge me–and has no expectation of me. We make each other. And the process allows me to breathe.

My body takes me there, and my mind cooperates. I can only compare the experience to when you find yourself singing along to a radio song you did not realize you knew the words to.

Abigail Frankfurt
Jailbirds, 2018
Ricco/Maresca Gallery

Possibly, it is the sensory experience, the ritual of it all. The fact that I have found a coping technique completely surprises me. Neurologically maybe everyone who has issues with depression, anxiety, voices in their head, has a secret combination to a vault that has been hiding the weapons we need to fight our so-called demons. Once we figure out the combination and we find the vault the demon is trapped and lonely—waiting to help all along. He is sitting there quaking and nervous holding a tin of paints, brushes, a dictionary, comic books, all sorts of paper. So, you thank him, you thank him twice. But of course, the demon knows what it is to get stuck.

Abigail Frankfurt
Farmer's Market, 2018
Ricco/Maresca Gallery
Ricco/Maresca Gallery