By Remy Sisk • Photos by Matt Johnson
Shakia Harris is living, thriving proof of the healing power of art. After suffering a horrific home invasion, Harris – now a successful and in-demand artist – found herself struggling with PTSD, depression and anxiety, issues that plagued her relentlessly and interfered daily with her work as a teacher. Anyone who has ever dealt with these struggles knows how overwhelming and all-consuming they can be, but Harris stands as an example of the unexpected glory that can emerge from this darkness; she was able to find a new path forward, healing herself through a newfound passion for painting.
“It was something that I always was enamored by,” Harris says of the art form, “but I never had the ‘natural talent.’ I could never draw or anything like that. But even back to being a kid and watching Bob Ross paint, I picked up very early that it was something that was just very fascinating, very calming, and just something I always had aspirations of, but I honestly never thought that this would come into fruition.”
While she was navigating her PTSD, a counselor suggested Harris try painting. She shares that at that point, she had tried medication, meditation and several other forms of treatment without having much luck, so her mind was open to exploring something new. She got on Amazon, ordered some paint supplies and got started. “I just was essentially throwing spaghetti at the wall,” she laughs.
However, she quickly found a shift in her mental state when she picked up her paintbrush. “I noticed immediately, though, when I would start to paint, it really was the only time that I felt like my mind would shut off enough for me to function,” she remembers. “And it was such a turbulent time too because my PTSD was so horrible. … So, to go from that extreme to painting in my living room and realizing like, ‘Oh snap, two hours have passed, and I haven’t been having panic attacks, I’m not worrying, I can actually live, I can function more independently now,’ – that’s what kept me persistent.”
Harris wholeheartedly embraced and explored this new treatment pathway, not only discovering mental peace but also a new talent. So, when the financial burden of being a teacher, especially during COVID, came to the forefront, her husband suggested she start selling the paintings she had accumulated. She shrugged it off, but as he kept encouraging her to consider it, she began doing a bit of research and eventually opened an Etsy shop.
Her success was nearly immediate. As soon as she opened, friends and family started buying her art, and then she started noticing people she didn’t know making purchases, rapidly getting to the point of receiving commission requests. “Once I started to get commission requests,” she recalls, “that was, like, the validation of, ‘Actually, I may be onto something.’”
She continued to sell her art to new and returning customers on Etsy, with many of whom urging her to increase her prices, in fact. The following summer, her husband encouraged her to have a booth at a festival in Lexington and, while reluctant, Harris agreed. While she was setting up for that event, before she was even fully unpacked, someone approached her and bought a 4-foot-tall painting. It was exactly the next push Harris needed: “And that’s when I was like, ‘Oh actually, if I really invested the time into this, I could actually make something happen.’”
She continued to showcase and sell at other art fairs, including the St. James Court Art Show, and truly began to see how this could become a genuine career for her. At a festival in Norton Commons for example, she made one full month’s teacher’s pay just in that weekend.
Harris eventually left her day job and now is a full-time artist. Her work is striking and captivating, beautiful swaths of color in a style that she identifies as abstract impressionism. “I don’t seek to be a detailed realist painter,” she maintains. “In my art, my biggest thing is just trying to emphasize that there’s beauty in imperfection. So, I’ll purposely paint something and then I’ll go and I’ll distress it or I’ll dilute some of the layers so that I can kind of buildup on it but also just leave a finished piece that still has some rawness and edge to it.”
But it’s important to remember that amidst all this success, the realities and difficulties of mental health still exist. Harris shines as an illustration of how it can be managed in a healthy and positive way. “The biggest thing I hope people get is that, you know, the thing about PTSD is it just feels so debilitating, and it feels so extreme and it’s so overwhelming, and, like, it really can get better,” she shares. “It doesn’t feel like that at the time. It’s hard to see your way out of it when you’re just suffocated by trauma. It’ll live with you forever, but you really can manage it. And, you know, we are more in control than we realize.”
Harris not only hopes to be an example of how something as incapacitating as PTSD can be navigated, but she also takes direct action to help those who may find themselves where she used to be. At 34, Harris admits that on her darkest days she never expected to live to see this age, but now here she is, showing the world what’s waiting for you if you keep forward and connecting with those to encourage them to do the same.
“I really try, as often as I can, especially with social media, to reach someone who’s on the cusp of not wanting to be here anymore,” she relates. “Like, if you hold on for a little bit longer, it’s going to get so much better, better than you can even imagine.”
To view and shop her artwork, make a commission request or connect, visit shakiaharrisart.com.
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