Reviews
does art have the intrinsic power to heal us? or rather...are all artists bad before they become artists?
yes, yes, i know.....the snobbery that that exists betwixt the 'professionals' and those suffering from mental illness (art therapy) is clearly evident...but why I ask you?
surely, if we are all honest with ourselves, hasn't being artists helped us to avoid:
1)prison
2)the sanitorium(nuthouse((U.K.))
3)suicide
4)wallowing in our own little puddle of self pity
5)poverty
6)office jobs(links back to 2))
7)becoming stale, boring, subservient gits
8)outrageous drug abuse
etc etc
Personally, I'm intrigued......the world could implode any minute but there'd still be an artist there to document it! to either rationalise or irationalise it of course!
surely, if we are all honest with ourselves, hasn't being artists helped us to avoid:
1)prison
2)the sanitorium(nuthouse((U.K.))
3)suicide
4)wallowing in our own little puddle of self pity
5)poverty
6)office jobs(links back to 2))
7)becoming stale, boring, subservient gits
8)outrageous drug abuse
etc etc
Personally, I'm intrigued......the world could implode any minute but there'd still be an artist there to document it! to either rationalise or irationalise it of course!
Tags: anti, art, healing, holistic, recovery, reprobate, therapy
Replies to This Reviews
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on -
I learned so much in university and at art school. Helped develop my confidence. Helped encourage me
to go out and to exhibit and even to find work. Cornell University helped us learn how to be scholarly
but to also have a means to exist in the changing world while doing art. Art Student's League was
different but of value. I wish I could go back to school but find my teachers through mentoring others
and vice versa. Younger generation and older seem to seek me out to work on collaborations and to help
me through rough patches. Everyone is always telling me to write a written word book. I am reading
Emerson essays and poetry now. Inspires me.
But what you have said above, is also what my teachers said to me.
Retires might paint because they have the time and deserve to do something else after slugging away
a different employment for too long first.
Yes, I always felt like a misfit at school from early on but now when my former friends visit they say
that they only remember envying my "coolness". Surprise.
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Permalink Reply by Steven Spann on -
My view is that all artist either create or destroy. You have both sides of a coin. If you are an artist and you are not creating then you are probably destroying something. This usually comes in the form of self destruction - addictive behavior, chewing gum, watching Deal or No Deal, etc... When an artist commits to create they release the built up tension. Imagine a race horse in the starting gate. If you watch them they are full of tension and anxiety. When the gate opens and they run you see them in their element. Who wants to be full of tension and anxiety? Not me.
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on
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For me it feels "self destructive" in mood but constructive in intent. I actually visited
a therapist this month and after three sessions, nine hours total, she decided that I need
the "depressed" feeling before I create as it is part of my process. She dismissed me and
said that she would interview me for her radio show and was impressed with the depth of
my art work but could not heal me or help me any more than she had done. Some other
critique and conversation ensued. Then I got this discussion on my computer so thought that
I would share. I ask you, which is more valuable, the art or the personality? Can one be
separated from the other? Maybe there is no one answer but art seems to be my motivator
and my modifier and I operate best when I am making art or thinking or talking about making
it. Otherwise I am at a loss? When she asked me if there was anything else I would like
to do I could not think of anything more important for me at this time...unless you consider
home maintenance, which is practical.
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on -
Or both at same time, Steven - Heidegger's "Abbau" - from whence Derrida and much post modern postulating. To ammend your analogy slightly, if creation and destruction are two side's of the same coin they cannot be seperated or quite logically it wouldn't be a coin. You just couldn't toss it!!!
It's not "either/ or" but "it/and" .....if not, it's so shallow that it's one dimensional, without dramatic tension and I'd hazard a guess...decoration not art. Ideas are dynamic and jump around each other. Space is the place!! Toss the coin!!
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on
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Herman Hesse wrote poetry that evokes that feeling of homesickness.
Beautiful but not curing anything.
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Permalink Reply by ted stanuga on -
Nice grab Mike! We create our prisons so we can break out of them, experiences or works that are the most valuable are those that embody everything. So we might be self destructive, habitually create shit art to correct, indulge in the destructive aspects of our personality, be obsessive etc. but as I think back to all the really talented friends I have known....they did all of it and more, and it didn't matter...only the work mattered. The most difficult thing to do is just accept it, and get to work, but it's there that relief lives.
I mean really, Michelangelo was an ass.
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on
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To my mind Amy, Herman Hesse wrote poetry that evokes that feeling of sickness. Truely vomit making. But hey! Different strokes for different folks!
Ah, the joys of democracy!
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on
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Why Ekaterina, should you expect something "beautiful" to come out of Art? What "God of Art" said that Art=Beauty. Furthermore, what do you mean by "BEAUTY"?
And of course, "What do you mean By "AR.... - no, let's not go there!
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on
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I think emotions are little bit more complex and less divisible than you do.
The human heart is not Disneyland, sorry if you don't see that.
And you haven't answered my questions. Never mind. We must agree to differ.
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Permalink Reply by ted stanuga on
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In the history of art, important work was deemed so by its effort to change the current notions of beauty, and that for a time while the adjustments took hold, the new work appeared ugly. So to deduce...we can say that for a work to have a chance at becoming art, it first must go through a period of "ugly". Then when the culture catches up...the serious artists move on. I admit that this process is a bit circuitous as I have known painters that have lived long enough for their work to become ugly again :o)
