The Heart Series
For her Senior Project at Oral Roberts University, Meagan chose to reflect on her healing journey after facing a number of traumatic events in her teen years. This series is titled, “Healing of the Heart”, and features twelve anatomical hearts. Each piece was created in a different medium and portrays an emotional state through the healing process - from past trauma until fully transformed into the likeness and fullness of Christ.
“I pray that you connect with this series and allow healing to manifest in your own heart. I pray that you can see that there is Hope in Jesus, that Healing is yours, and that you just have to say yes to the hard work. There is such a grace and a love for your healing, no matter where you’re at. This series may be my testimony, but it’s just as much your story.”
- Meagan
01
MONSTERS
Pen & Ink Drawing
This heart represents trauma at its peak, whether in the midst of circumstantial trauma or the emotional/mental state that remains afterward. It is deep deep deep pain, emotions, feelings, all resonating in reality. While the intensity of this emotional state is temporary on the healing journey, its scars will always remain.
A reminder of how far you’ve come.
A basis for empathizing with others’ pain.
This tormenting state may seem overpowering but there is a vast ocean of opportunity for hope and healing ahead.
02
BONDAGE
Steel Welding
This heart is entangled in bondage. It’s indestructible, unbreakable, and heavy. It feels stuck with no way out, suffocating by chains tightly wound around the chest. It is unresolved trauma molding into a hardened heart. It is disassociated with itself, overcompensating for misspoken truths. This heart fails to realize its protective mechanisms are actually causing more pain. While one may think they are becoming stronger, “managing their pain”, they are actually welding one painful moment to another, building walls that no one can break through.
03
SHATTERED
Digital Design
Layers and layers of trauma frozen over. One hurt reinforced by another hurt. Years of trauma, years of triggers, years of emotional pain left unsettled. While encrusted in the immovable, it’s equally as fragile and could shatter at any given moment, at any unexpected trigger. Something cracking on the surface level provokes an extremely irrational, emotional response, rooted from deep pain. It is a dark and cold place to be. Yet all the while, our Loving Father is slowing chipping away at the ice, melting the core, and revealing the way out.
04
LOST
Ink on Mylar
This heart is lost in itself. It has gone numb, burying all feelings and emotions so deeply inside. This heart cannot find a clearing, with clouded thoughts roaming and racing within. Depression masks its walls, lingering anxiety seeping through the windows. On the outside, the busyness of life is the best medication, distraction. On the inside, it feels empty, lonely, and ever so dark; completely unaware of the emotional weight that trauma left behind. Disassociation is this heart’s best friend and self-awareness is seldom to none.
05
SUFFOCATION
Papier-Mâché Sculpture
This piece, while simplistic in form and color, represents suffocation. It signifies the feelings of entrapment and anxiety. Perhaps it’s a tight chest, clenching fists, or a pit in your stomach. It represents those awful feelings you cannot seem to shake. You’re struggling for air, for just one deep breath to reset. But the walls are closing in tighter and faster with every breath, every heartbeat. It seems impossible, but take just a moment to sit still, acknowledge your current situation, and inhale a deep, airy, breath. That’s when healing begins.
06
TENSION
Embroidery on Canvas
This heart is in constant tension between trauma and healing. Growing pains, if you will. This heart begins the journey of self-awareness, grace, and compassion for itself. This heart sees the light and hope of healing, yet is still burdened by lingering and unresolved trauma. It wants to grow, but isn’t ready to let go. This heart is required to look its greatest fears in the eyes; to replace old lies with the Lord’s truth. However, the provocation of revisiting those dark places is a pain so great, a fragile state, yet the strongest place to be.
07
RESTORATION
Watercolor on Paper
Replacing lies with the Truth. This piece is a reflection of my personal journey. Inscribed on the left are entries of my trauma journal, paired with scripture rewriting the pain. While still in a battle between trauma and healing, it is as if the two begin to work in unison. Pushing, pulling, stretching, growing. While this heart becomes more susceptible to unexpected triggers, it also becomes more capable of understanding compassion for itself. It is the process of restoration. The more you understand your story, the more healing emerges.
08
BREAKTHROUGH
Linocut Printmaking
A burst of warmth, joy, hope, & light, all euphorically exploding from within! It has been a long hard journey to finally find a sense of relief. A milestone proving this journey is worth it. This pivotal moment is the realization that your traumatic emotions may have been lying to you. You are stronger than you know, victorious, and deserving of love. The journey is far from over, yet the hope that healing has begun to manifest and root deep in your soul is the momentum that will perpetuate your continuous growth and healing.
09
WASHING
Mixed Media Sculpture
This piece represents the washing of the heart. First inspired by spiritual baptism, the act of purification through Jesus Christ. In His loving-kindness and grace, He washes our hearts, free of guilt and shame. And secondly, the verse “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). This piece is a complete transformation from dark to light, not by our own human strength but by Our Creator who loves us unconditionally. He is washing away the scars that trauma left behind.
PROCESSING
10
Acrylic Pour Painting
This pour painting embodies a visual representation of processing through intertwining and connecting, as thoughts begin to flow together in unity. Processing emerges after establishing a safe and healthy emotional state, where you can dive deep into understanding and self-awareness. It is a journey of becoming aware of connections that link triggers to trauma, and childhood experiences to subconscious thoughts and tendencies. It is the process of connecting to yourself and to your world, and understanding how you operate as a human being.
11
FLOURISH
Paper Quilling
This heart represents a joy like never before. A warmth from within, ricocheting from the deepest places to every inch of the outer walls. This heart encompasses a whimsical, childlike aspect, completely safe, free, and whole. This heart has complexity in detail, embracing self-worth in every component. This heart is strong, bound together by healing moments. It creates a web of memories, once traumatic but now coated in truth and grace. It continues to grow and expand as healing becomes a fluid state of being.
12
PURIFICATION
Porcelain & Kintsugi
A purified, whole, healed, restored heart. Porcelain is white, smooth, fine-grained clay. It represents purity in itself. It’s highly favored and very valuable, as such each of our hearts. The Japanese art of Kintsugi repairs broken pottery with infused gold. It embraces imperfections and flaws, and adds more value than the original piece. It’s symbolic of the healing process in that we must embrace our imperfections and become aware of the necessary repairs, so that we may be transformed and purified into restored creations.
You may be thinking "Now What?"
After viewing this series, you may be thinking "now what"? What do I do with this information, how do I process what I just absorbed?
Meagan has created each print available for purchase. Additionally, she has created a Guided Journal that includes each piece, description, and journaling pages to help you process your own journey and your own heart. Click the buttons below to learn more.
The Heart Series: Extended Diptych
In the summer of 2024, I felt inspired to create a 2-part extension of the Heart Series based on my 15-page Theological Anthropology paper I wrote for grad school. The thesis of my paper was “Human flourishing is the holistic pursuit towards shalom in the face of despair.”
My idea was to create a new diptych that would be large-scale, the first piece being “Despair” and the second being “Shalom”. Despair was completed towards the end of summer, but Shalom is currently still in the works.
part 1
DESPAIR
Mixed Media on Canvas
Utter hopelessness. This heart captures the essence of your world falling apart, with mosaic tiles dispersing into the vast void, claws piercing into the depths of your soul, and an unraveling of everything you’ve ever known. Despair captures everything and nothing all at the same time. And yet – in the midst – there is and will continue to be beauty brought forth. It’s impossible to know the fullness of joy without the fullness of despair. In the embrace of the liminal space, the desperation for more, your heart will glimmer back to hope.
part 11
SHALOM
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
Coming soon...