Amy Helmick

The Weight of Buried Emotion

The Weight of Buried Emotion

This piece The Weight of Buried Emotion and its accompanying piece Bar(i)ometer are made from the same RAW file. Bar(i)ometer was my original concept for this shoot: that oftentimes weight (or weight loss) serve as kind of barometer for our internal state of being.

While editing and choosing a color palette, The Weight of Buried Emotion came to be. While trying to decide which color treatment fit this piece best, it occurred to me that the two messages are actually similar but different so I decided to keep both versions.

The Weight of Buried Emotions depicts a woman deep in and surrounded by the earth; buried, if you will. The similar concept of how not facing our emotions and pushing them down effects our physical manifestation of self is more evident here. Avoidance can be very weighty indeed.