Nusye McComish – SouthSeaEyes

There is an odd unsaid, unwritten expectation that to state as being a Printmaker, or management accountant, or analyst (or [insert whatever title here]), means that you ought to have a 25-year expertise of every single process and method of the thing. Weirdly, there is also a self-shaming guilt-trip when a 25-year experience is not the case. It takes a certain mindset to pause and re-shape that thinking in one’s own mind to accede that truly, one needs to know enough to do what is needed to get the thing done, and done reasonably well. Especially as the thing is something one creates to self-heal.

The Initial Struggle

Having spent years in eyeballing numbers as a reasonably adept spreadsheet jockey careerist, and still finding enjoyment in forecasting and planning like a competent finance & planning analyst, I reached a point where everything became mere deliverables for the multinational corporations I worked for. These corporations absorbs anything and everything I had to offer: my time, my energy, my efforts, my learning, my improvements, my lunches, my dinners with the family, my sleep. Everything was a Scope Creep. My paycheck was the only thing I took from them, and it was meagre compared to the time lost with my children, my husband, my Mum and my siblings, my friends. Over time, the grind had taken all that I could give, leaving me with a dessicated soul. The pandemic lockdowns only made it far worse.

The printmaking kick-off

A softcut lino somehow got into my hands. At the time, my only tool was a scalpel. Pressing it to the lino to carve out lines for made the design come to life. The scalpel responded to the lino under my hands and it was a ‘Zing!” moment. It was a “Crumbs! this works!” revelation. This initial spark fed my passion – a slow-burn, a low-burn, steadily fizzling away on a long wick.

Each new lino, each cut, brought a sense of revival, as if my soul was being gently rehydrated. There is something incredibly therapeutic about working with your hands. Each movement, each careful carving of the lino, brought a sense of purpose and calm. It wasn’t just about creating a piece of art – it was a sense of reclaiming fragments of my inner self that I had lost along the way.

Carving into the lino was a form of carving out a space for my emotions, of feelings, of long-suppresed memories of hurt and swallowed anger, of the neglected self. Working with my hands brought me back to the inner core of the self of whom I had forgotten.

Of course I read into this – I am an analyst after all. Of course I read van Boksel’s The Body Keeps The Score; how it had lead me towards clearly seeing the shame I felt about the career I left behind over the pandemic era. Though that is for another story

For this story is about hope;

There is a concept called Effort-Driven Rewards Cycle, which suggests that engaging in hands-on activities can activate the brain’s natural reward system. Neuroscientist Kelly Lambert discusses this is her book, Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist’s Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain’s Healing Power. She explains how using our hands in creative tasks can help lift the fog of depression by reawakening the brain’s rewards circuits.

Sharing my work and passion with others was a complex structure to navigate. Some participants felt the weight of a demanding career. Some are art enthusiast. Some hobbyists. to all, I encourage them to find their own creative outlets, to re-discover the curiousity in starting with a simple carved out line. And eventually creating and making something completely tangible with their hands. It was a task to help them understand that it wasn’t about being perfect – or of about achieving some level of mastery; rather, it was about the Process. The Journey of expression and healing.

Each new lino, each cut, brought a sense of revival, as if my soul was being gently rehydrated

The Workshops

Hence my printmaking workshops. My workshop became a place of refuge and renewal. People came to carve, to ink, to print ….and to reconnect with parts of themselves they had forgotten. Together, we giggled, shared stories, and found comfort in the simple act of creating. The workshop sessions echoes with sounds of discovery and gentle hum of contentment.

The Realisation

All that helped me realise that the greatest reward wasn’t the art itself, but the feeling of being connected – to my own inner world, to my hard-won feeling of self again, to my own spirit. Through printmaking, I found a way to heal my wounds inflicted by my corporate career in the relentless high-pressure energy sector, significantly fueling my burnout. Through printmaking I mapped out a Nusye-specific path to self-healing, one carve at a time;

… Which reminds me: self-expression, not just joy, is the true antidote to depression.

Your closet-scientist, wonderfully self-pausing printmaker,

Nusye