Artist Maggie Schirmer finding healing through the creative process

Ms Schirmer was taken into care as a child in the 1980s. The events which occurred and abuse she endured during her time in care, when she was a ward of the state for a period of 10 years, has affected her mentally, emotionally and physically for the duration of her life.

“My entire life I have continually broken and rebuilt. It always goes back to the forms of abuses that occurred to me while apparently being cared for. Being taken away from your home environment to be looked after and it not happening over and over again has an effect on you,” Ms Schirmer said.

“Everything I am is because of being in care and suffering so many different forms of abuse. Never during that period of time was I placed in a family group home or a foster home.”

Ms Schirmer was in and out of Allambie Reception Centre, Winlaton Girls Training Facility and girls hostels throughout her youth.

She said Winlaton, with its barbed wire windows and barred doors, was distressing for a girl of 13. 

“All of a sudden I was in care alongside young women. I was in with a person who had done a series of armed robberies and was a heroin addict. I have only come to understand this now, but she, at least, had a release date because she had been sentenced, but I was in there with no end time.”

As a result, Ms Schirmer developed coping mechanisms like chronic smiling to mask her pain, as well as more damaging behaviours.

“I built up an incredible false identity of looking okay and being so incredibly damaged on the inside that it was only natural that I ended up being on heroin to pacify myself and try to cope. They were my peers - I needed to survive my environment - and to survive you become alike,” she said.

For Ms Schirmer, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse has re-triggered her trauma. 

Ms Schirmer decided to give a statement after learning about the Royal Commission, but said this re-ignited her trauma, catapulting her back into therapy.

“I had to re-construct myself and go through that healing process again - I’ve had to do it so many times - after I struggled with addiction in my younger adult life, when my kids got to certain ages when I was being abused, I had to go into therapy to cope,” Ms Schirmer said.

“And [the Royal Commission] has left so many people with ongoing triggers. I, myself, for the last two years, have been in the worst mental state [of] my adulthood.”

Ms Schirmer said the National Redress Scheme had also evolved to be a major trigger for her, as she felt the difficulty in making herself heard was re-traumatising her. “It’s almost like I’m going through the same thing that I did when I was younger,” she said. “Nobody knows why it is taking so long or what has happened because they alleged it would be a smooth process.”

Having lost her career in psychology, Ms Schirmer re-trained as an art therapist.

She creates in her home studio, in Ballan, for a minimum of three hours per day.

“It is most fundamental that I create daily to keep my energy shifting and moving. Non-verbal expression goes a long way for my inner peace and to help me keep going,” she said.

“Through creating, something shifts that is non-verbal. It is deeper and speaks with a more permanent alignment of healing, acceptance and the ability to let go, particularly of anger and injustice.”

One of the reasons she is putting on her exhibition, which ran in Kyneton last year, is to continue the conversation about the Royal Commission and ensure it is not swept under the rug.

Ms Schirmer started creating the pieces for her exhibition in 2013; at the beginning of the Royal Commission.

She created 30 individual pieces in the series, but is only displaying 20.

“The first 10 are very visually angry but the 20 after that are better,” she said. “I created one piece a day for a month. The process was incredibly messy at first. It was very physical.”

Her resin flow art pieces have therapeutic benefits for her.

“It helps drop that perfectionist drive and relinquish a sense of control. When you experience trauma you so want to be in control of your environment to create a sense of security and safety, but of course in real life that doesn’t happen.”

She also incorporated the symbolic Japanese Kintsugi concept into the series. The philosophy entails painting gold joinery to put a broken object back together so that rather than it being something to hide, it is an object of pride, with the break adding value. 

The pieces also have holographic glitter – representative of hope - to remind her that no matter what – some form of hope and strength can also shine through.

Underneath her pieces, Ms Schirmer will place the boxes of recommendations that were handed down after the Royal Commission ended, as well as contact numbers for support services.

The exhibition, titled Fractured, But Whole, will be on display at Beyond the Gate Gallery from February 8.

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