Where Is our Couple Connection?
Especially as time goes on, couples often find it challenging to find ways to keep their connection alive at levels that go beyond the day-to-day.
We — Esther Siegel and Spencer Brewer — have been together for around 45 years and like most couples, have had our peaks and valleys along the way. We share some core basic values yet are different in many ways (opposites attract). Over time our individual interests either morphed into careers or private lifelong passions. We supported each other in our chosen paths, yet rarely fully engaged into the other one’s fields of interest. At different times in our marriage, we made efforts to form one common activity other than parenting, home maintenance, paying bills or working, yet none stuck or brought ongoing joy and connection. Although we wanted the other to engage or ‘play’ in our separate fields of interest, such as horses or music, we ended up doing our activity alone or with friends.
It’s easy to stay busy doing our own thing, having ‘the business’ of our marriage being the only connection. Not much enjoyment or hope here. Sometimes it was hard accessing the feelings we had for one another at the beginning of our relationship. We didn’t know how to continue ‘couple connection’, to be on a level playing field, have fun and inspire creativity together. How were we going to create something meaningful for each of us, where it was a shared experience, where each equally had some credit and validity?
A Catalyst for Trust and Respect
One thing we had in common was we liked art. We enjoyed going to galleries and museums and were drawn to similar art forms. We dabbled in making different kinds of art from time to time. One of us liked to scrapbook and made creative greeting cards with no formal art background or art experience. The other made weird ‘found art’ birdhouses and musical sculptures, had some formal art background, and did various art forms throughout his life. We each reveled in how cool the other’s craft was, but once again we were doing it alone in separate spaces.
We both have always had concerns about protecting the environment and recycled when we could. We enjoyed going to flea markets, estate sales, and thrift stores having fun scavenger hunt experiences. Organically we started collecting unique and unusual ‘found’ or recycled items creating a ‘collection of stuff’ in our barn. With all this ‘stuff’ it seemed a natural progression to put different found objects together to make something new and different. This art form we found out was called assemblage art.
It happened quite naturally, as we started creating assemblage art side by side making individual pieces, as well as an art piece together. Little did we know what this shared activity was to do for our relationship.
Here are 6 ways it strengthened our marriage:
- Increased love and connection
We noticed as we began to make art on a regular basis that there was an increase in smiles, loving feelings, and connection. We didn’t realize it but making art together was causing an excess of a hormone commonly as the “love drug” or oxytocin. It is actually responsible for our sexual arousal, trust, bonding, and romantic attachments. Who would have thought?! A win-win situation: we get to feel more love and create art pieces all at the same time! We found out this hormone has a positive feedback loop too. This means that the release of oxytocin leads to actions that stimulate our pituitary glands to release even more of it. This makes total sense why when we are in the barn together making art, we always feel closer, more playful, and yes, at times romantic!
- Provided Free Relationship Therapy
Making art together has helped contribute to a more satisfying marriage. From compromising on which objects to buy at a flea market to communicating our thoughts on how these objects could be assembled, doing art has provided the opportunities to practice more effective communication. This translated into more joy, playfulness, and curiosity in our relationship.
The activity of doing art together has led us to building a strong support system around each other’s creative process. It works best when we stay open to the other person’s ideas, being unattached that our suggestions are the right fit for the other’s work. Through this support and unattachment process, lots of opportunities to let go and watch new ideas have emerged developing an increase in trust. By flexing our creative sides, we get a stronger sense of self and the ability to solve problems by imaging possible solutions together. Even co-writing this article has been a cooperative process of give and take, listening to one another’s suggestions, whether we agree with them or not.
- Art Brought Shared Joy and Playfulness
For many years while ‘doing’ our marriage, joy was not a regular part of our relationship. We were going about our life paying bills, driving kids around, making sure the home front kept functioning. Yet when we started doing assemblage art together, the simple task of putting a ‘found object’ next to another in an art piece brought us joy and/or excitement.
When Esther came up with the idea that we should make an assemblage book together, we had no idea how far we would travel down the rabbit’s hole…together. For every small or large success, we shared joy and closeness that became part of our marriage. Now, we share the joy of having brought the book Lost & Found: Assemblage Artists of Northern California out into the world. These included making art, a gallery opening, bookstore talks, participating in self-publishing conventions, and writing this article.
- A Catalyst for Trust and Respect – ‘We Instead of Me’
In the past, we each lived in the fast lane, coming from a ‘me’ place, not a ‘we’ place. We generally had room for only one passenger. Sure ‘we’ shared a home, family, goals, living together, but the real difference was when some decisions came about, we did not fully include each other. Doing art together and writing a book on this art form caused us to shed our cloak of ‘me’ and start coming from a place of ‘we’. Surprisingly, this shift also translated across many areas of our relationship.
As the ‘we’ aspect of daily life grew, it became a catalyst for more trust and respect between us. We started to allow each other’s voice and opinion to have more weight and meaning, which enhanced more respect for our opinions and thoughts. This asking and listening process created more trust in our ability to handle everyday life problems together
- Reduced Stress
The very act of creating is a stress reducer. When we are making art, we are present and in the moment. It is a time of letting go of worries, tensions, and anxieties. One might say it is an experience of active meditation. A sense of well-being occurs that gives us a timeless experience. This is evident by not realizing the amount of hours that have passed, tension free in our art studio. It’s our ‘happy place.’
- Led us to Create New Initiatives Together in our Community
Although we participate in art galleries and shows, the real juice and interest has been with artists and non-artists who want to learn how or to make assemblage art. This led us to begin putting on one day assemblage camps. Each person brings their own objects and/or pulls from our collection and we assist them in whatever way is needed. Through this engaging and creative activity, a local community around making art has evolved.
We have had participants in the camp state ‘they are not creative’, then break that pattern throughout the day and discover a fun, delightful inner joy. As partners, we are being helpful, supportive, witnessing others in their own creative process, sharing the joy of their finished piece. When some folks learn how to use a drill, or problem solve attaching an object, we get to witness their lightbulb turn on with a new sense of ‘I can do this and that wasn’t so hard!’
Several times during the day, when we are on either side of a full barn helping someone, we’ll look up, smile at each other, knowing how much fun this is and our playful connection once again is ‘in the room.’
Our marriage has deepened by being creative together; from collecting the found objects to assembling them. Bottom line is we have fun, support each other and enjoy the journey wherever it takes us.
Spencer Brewer
Spencer has been creating art and music since he was a young boy. For most of his adult life he was in the music business, recording and producing hundreds of records while working as a technician on over 20,000 pianos, crank phonographs and pump organs. Collecting and working on pianos, he eventually found himself creating assemblage art before he knew what it was called. When the music industry collapsed in 2008, he shifted his focus to assemblage art full time.
Esther Siegel
Esther Siegel is a psychotherapist by training who has worked in the field of book art, been active in the scrapbooking world, and created both greeting cards and ‘found art’ sculptures. A late-in-life artist, she creates pieces that are a mixture of the whimsical and dark humor. They include Book-Mobiles & Book Art, Twisted Toasters (vintage toasters as the base), Horse People (horse/doll combo), fun repurposed sculptures, small lamps and Altered Barbies.
