I started working at a university art department before I had cancer.  I took a drawing class that semester.  I was given special permission to miss more than 3 days of class.  Thankfully a fellow student was willing to come to my house and tell me what was happening in class.  However, I didn’t take into account the fact that my arm was too week to hold my drawing pad.  I drew all my perspective drawing small size then after healing I drew them all again at the required size.  I discovered several important things in the process.  I could draw.  Drawing was so difficult for me that it took all my brain power to execute a drawing at the same time dulling the pain from after the surgery.  Therefor, when I was drawing I required fewer pain killers.  I didn’t draw anything that had anything tied to trauma.  I didn’t connect my art to trauma.  A little over a year after cancer, I started marriage counseling.  I again used drawing and coloring to lessen the pain.  I found that each session tore open forgotten pains that never healed properly.  I was in counseling several years before I did a photography show on my emotional reaction to cancer.  I discovered the powerful connection of creating art inspired by trauma.  I finally figured out that art could express the feelings that I had no words for.  Photography, clay, painting, drawing, collage, wood carving all became possible outlets of expressing my inner pain and my battle to over come.  I could not change my past but I could change my future.  Art gave me a way to express what I was feeling.  It is a powerful coping tool.

Others express their reaction to trauma through art.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/new-exhibition-seeks-to-explain-trauma-through-art-1.2436884

Childhood Lost