The Alchemy of Art.
There is a moment just before the first note plays where the air holds its breath. A quiet pause, a space between now and then. And then, the music starts, and I am no longer here. I am everywhere I have ever been.
Music is more than a background sound to my creative process; it is the vessel, the portal, the bridge between past and present. It is how I time-travel back to the moments that shaped me, the memories that still hum beneath my skin. Some are golden with nostalgia, soft-edged and warm. Others carry weight, pressing against my ribs, waiting to be released. But no matter what they hold, music allows me to step inside them, to feel them fully, to translate them into art.
I don’t just recall memories - I immerse myself in them. A song from my youth can pull me back to the exact moment I first heard it, the scent of the air, the fabric of the past brushing against my fingertips. This is where my art begins.
When I create, whether through poetry, painting, or drawing, I am not simply documenting these memories; I am working through them. The act of making is an exhale, a way to process what lingers. Some memories need closure. Some anxieties need a voice. Art allows me to give shape to what was once intangible. It turns emotions into something I can hold, something I can understand, something I can let go of.
Music is the catalyst, but what happens next is a conversation between sound and expression. The rhythm seeps into my brushstrokes, the melody threads itself into my words. If I am painting, colours are chosen by feeling- deep blues for longing, bursts of red for intensity, muted greys for the spaces where words don’t reach. If I am writing, the cadence of my thoughts syncs with the beat, my words dancing between the pauses of the song.
I do not force the process. I let the music guide me.
Some days, I sit with the same song on repeat, allowing it to burrow into me until I am fully within the memory it unlocks. Other days, I shift through sounds, letting one melody take me somewhere unexpected. The beauty of this process is in its unpredictability- I never know where the music will lead, what emotions will rise, or how they will take form in my work.
This is how I use art as therapy. It is not just about expression; it is about release. There are memories I have carried for years, their weight pressing against me in ways I could never fully name until I painted them, wrote them, externalized them. The creative process allows me to take control of what once felt overwhelming.
What once existed only in my mind - unspoken, unresolved - becomes something tangible, something separate from me. And in that transformation, there is freedom.
I do not create to forget. I create to understand. I create to reclaim.
Art is an alchemy of emotion, and music is the spark that sets it all in motion. It allows me to bridge the past and the present, to turn memory into something meaningful, something that no longer owns me but instead becomes a part of my story - a story I choose to tell.
So I press play. The world blurs. The art begins. And somewhere in the space between sound and creation, I find myself again.
Listen to the audio version of this post below for those who connect with words not just by reading, but by feeling them through sound: