Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Bloch.
Hi Rachel, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
When I was a little girl, I loved doing everything creative — I made a skirt once, because I had a vision of a beautiful patchwork of fabrics. I was always making up song lyrics, humming and dancing around the house. I made little certificates for my friends, each one naming what was special about them, and a picture book of our memories together. I remember making a sun out of dried, painted sand.
But somewhere along the way, I internalized the belief that art wouldn’t be “enough” to meet the standards I had set for myself (as an adult, I told people that art was “outside of my skill-set,” and that all I could draw were stick-figures). Instead, I focused everything on career achievements. It was only a few years ago that I realized this intense focus on my career was motivated by a fear of inadequacy — that it was a vehicle I used to try to prove to other people that I am valuable and important, because I believed I wasn’t good enough. When I realized this, I couldn’t keep living the same way. I started rapidly changing my life.
The more I leaned away from my career, the more I found my way back to art, and discovered I loved it just as much as I did as a little girl. Now I paint — watercolor, acrylic, oil — and I don’t believe in mistakes; I love everything I make because I love making it. I build little bird scenes out of moss, still-life flowers with fabric paint and watercolor, and mixed media pieces from things I find in nature — dried flowers, sticks, shells. I make jewelry. I love art that’s playful and transports you: a fairy garden, a flower the size of a rabbit next to one the size of a ladybug. I even painted a faux front door onto my real front door — with a wreath, a knocker, and indentations, all of it fake and all of it fancy.
Art for me is play. It’s liberation. It’s a complete and total break from proving myself.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
A couple of years after I made these realizations, I suffered a serious burnout. I had been advancing through my career so ferociously, and I changed directions with the same intensity. It was as if I was barreling down the highway over 100 mph and suddenly slipped the gear into reverse. My brain broke down. I couldn’t speak for several months.
My illness was dreadful, but during the first few weeks I didn’t know what I was facing. I only knew that it was painful to think and to speak. I spent a lot of time painting and going on walks. I painted over an old canvas and asked myself what it looked like — I thought it looked like a newspaper. Later, on a walk, headlines started bouncing through my head: “What if nothing is wrong?” and “Child Learns to Read.” I painted a newspaper called The Deeper Truth, with poetry instead of articles, and stories that continued on page infinity.
As my illness wore on, months passed where I couldn’t communicate. In that isolation, ideas kept coming. I wanted to turn The Deeper Truth into a real newspaper on broadsheet newsprint, and leave it around where people find newspapers. I passed through years of hell before I was healed enough to act on this – last year, I printed the first edition of The Deeper Truth, a newspaper featuring poetry, art, and the occasional surprise.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
The Deeper Truth is a broadsheet newspaper of poetry, art, and the occasional surprise — I edit it, curate it, design it, and get it into people’s hands. While I love making art that has no purpose other than to please me, The Deeper Truth is the work I’m most proud of, because it represents so much of what I want to bring into the world. It’s a direct challenge to the beliefs that limit us — the idea that we have to prove our worth through our careers, that things aren’t valuable unless they “achieve” something, or that the only events in the universe worth our attention are the ones that make us afraid.
Another piece of this newspaper that’s deeply potent for me is giving expression to truths that came through during my months of forced isolation. Sharing those with the world heals something in me, and helps me close that chapter of my life. I also share this platform with other artists — the most recent edition features poetry and art by nineteen contributors from Maryland and DC, as well as around the country and the world. The next edition will include voices from people incarcerated in DC jails. Giving a platform to people who are currently living that feeling of invisibility — of not being heard, of disappearing — moves me deeply.
I’m not sure I’d call myself known, exactly — but in my neighborhood, I’ve turned a lot of ordinary things into unexpected art: a shop and gallery in my carport, a hand-painted little free library, and a garden that’s full of playful surprises (including a fairy garden, a floating tea party, and a wall full of framed flower pots). I think if I’m known for anything, it’s that — taking whatever is in front of me and finding a way to make it something else.
I think what sets me apart from others making art is the way that I have come to it, divorced so completely from the desire to satisfy my ego. My dedication to that mission, of creating for the joy of it, and doing my best to share that with other people as I go, has broken me and built me back up.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
The first people that come to mind are the ones who didn’t forget me when I was sick. Krissy, Patrick, Peter, Ocean, Liat, Jay, and Dave are a few people who checked on me as the months turned into years, and didn’t stop until they knew I was okay again. These people make the world a place I want to live in. I also am so fortunate to have a husband and parents who love me, even when they have to face their fears, and running away would be much easier. When I was sick, I was their first priority; I am blessed to be loved like this.
Even though it is unusual to give oneself credit in a section like this, I often think of the person I was when I got sick as different from who I am today. Because the pain I went through was so intense, sometimes I think the girl that lived those things is dead. I am grateful to her, the me of a few years ago, for bearing so much so that today I can live again, and bring some of her dreams to life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ARayInTheWorld.com
- Instagram: @arayintheworld
