Pain is Presence: Identifying Creative Approaches from an Artist Living with Chronic Pain

With Teethe

I want to begin with a disclaimer: I am speaking from my own lived experience with chronic pain, and I recognize that every person’s experience is unique. What I offer here is a reflection—an exploration of how we might reimagine the relationship between pain and creativity. After living with chronic pain for several years, I’ve had time to think deeply about it as I continue to move through the world and rebuild my artistic practice.

One aspect of my experience is that I live with Trigeminal Neuralgia, a condition caused by damage to the trigeminal nerve, which begins near the top of the ear and branches toward the eye, cheek, and jaw. I now take regular medication to dull the sensations. In the immediate years after my accident, the pain was so intense that I sometimes had to bite into a towel or a pillow for relief.

This facial pain inspired me to create an ongoing project called With Teeth, which explores trauma, healing, and the body’s language through the metaphor and material of teeth.

Facing pain each day while expanding my artistic practice—and reimagining myself as a contemporary artist—I’ve come to understand that pain is not separate from creativity. For me, it is something I must be in relation to. A recurring message has emerged for me: pain is a portal. I want to explore what that means.

Pain Keeps You Present

Living with chronic pain keeps you anchored in your body. It gives the body full permission to express itself.

Before my accident, I often lived outside of my body—with my head in the clouds. That quality served me in many ways, but I frequently found myself moving constantly, never truly present anywhere.

Pain changes that. To live with pain is to be continually reminded of your physicality. You can’t escape it—you must meet it, every day, in the body.

Authenticity and Showing Up as You Are

Pain demands authenticity. When you live with pain, you can only show up as you are. Sometimes that means not showing up at all. But when you do, you arrive honestly—entirely within your experience.

That kind of honesty brings a new layer of perspective—a rawness and truth that transforms both life and art. The art that moves us most deeply is often the art born from that authentic place.

Boundaries as Structure

Another lesson chronic pain teaches is the importance of boundaries. Our bodies are unpredictable and often unreliable, so boundaries become a form of survival.

Boundaries were not something that came easily to me. I learned to set boundaries only when I no longer had a choice. Yet through that process, I discovered that boundaries are not limitations—they are frameworks that allow for greater freedom. They define the space in which true creative expression can emerge.

Time, Resources, and Preciousness

Chronic pain redefines your relationship with time and resources—both become limited. I’ve learned to strategize my energy, time, and income carefully.

Because my days of full functionality are fewer, the moments I can spend creating feel like gifts. This sense of preciousness has deepened my connection to my work. There’s a theory that when we treat time and energy as sacred, our attention—and therefore our art—becomes more meaningful. I have found that to be true.

Listening as Practice

Pain teaches you to listen. I listen to my body, to the pain itself—asking, What is it trying to tell me?

There are days when I have no choice but to remain in bed, feeling every sensation, every pulse of aliveness within me. That kind of listening changes you. It heightens sensitivity not just to what you see, but also to what is unseen.

For me, this has become an essential part of my art practice—an attunement to subtle energies, to whispers, to the spaces between things.

Pleasure in the Details

After my accident, I feared that pleasure would no longer have a place in my life. It was challenging to imagine joy when my body felt unpredictable and unfamiliar.

But as I’ve healed, I’ve learned that pleasure is not only possible—it’s essential. It appears in small moments, in details, in noticing. I love artists who honor those subtleties, who reveal the beauty within the ordinary. Pleasure, too, is a form of presence.

A Hope for Recognition

I hope that these reflections on pain and creativity can open up new ways of understanding within the contemporary art world. Artists living with chronic pain are developing new approaches—ways of being, making, and perceiving — that challenge conventional notions of participation, productivity and success. Their pain is, in essence, a presence—a creative force in its own right that deserves recognition.