Art - It Makes you Happier, Smarter and More Attractive

On my Facebook Page, over the years, I have been sharing articles about how art improves life – it makes you happier, smarter, more attractive, etc. In my last newsletter I mentioned that I process my life experience while painting. So, I thought I would elaborate on that statement and how art improves my life.

I feel that art is a form of cognitive therapy that helps me to make life decisions. The act of painting is an endless series of decisions: should it be yellower or greener, warm or cool, straighter or more curved, etc. Every action is a decision based on previous decisions. This decision-making process is focused and in the moment.

I, like most people, have two tracks in their brain. One track is focused on a task in the moment while another track is open for ideas and such to flit through. For example, this is like when you are folding your laundry but thinking about something else. At times, activities need full attention but much of the time, as when doing simple tasks like folding laundry, the other track is free to wander and bring disparate things into consciousness.

When I paint, I deliberately am open to this second track. There are several reasons for this: the second track freely responds to my art and guides me, it allows me to connect disparate ideas, and it helps me to reflect on life experiences.

As an artist, I want my colors and imagery to trigger a response in the viewer. Art works best when people bring their own responses and their own meanings to the work. While my first track is focused on making straight lines, consistent paint handling and the like, my second track is subjectively viewing the work. If a paint stroke, color or object triggers a response in me I am pretty sure that it will trigger a response in other viewers. I can’t control their response, but I can make sure my art is something that creates a response. I am focused on the craft, but it is the second track that helps my work become art that effects the viewer.

I am open to my second track for its associations and pattern recognition. As part of my brain is planning and painting, my second track is making associations about the imagery and the paint handling. These ideas and connections float through freely. If one particularly strikes me, it will influence my painting. I don’t judge the associations they are all born of my life experiences and these connections are made for a reason. Sometimes it takes time to figure out why something popped in my brain, but its okay if I don’t understand at first. It is the second track that makes those creative leaps that give particular paintings a twist in perspective and, again, create a response in the viewer.

This is the process I use to create art that has a strong underpinning and that will get a response from the viewer. It is a process of holding both the reasoned objective view of craft and the felt subjective response to the making as equal – in tandem.

So, how does this process make one happier, smarter and more attractive? When painting, my second track is already primed to be figuring out patterns and responding to input in my art. It is rather easy for it to flip over to looking for patterns and responding to life situations. When the painting I am creating doesn’t require as much attention, my second track just continues its process, applying it to whatever else is going through my head. It is here that my brain will make those leaps to new evaluations of what had happened previously in my life and new realizations for the future. Through this process I do become happier, smarter and...well.

I find that having a practice of painting leads to a practice of self-evaluation because both are based on recognizing patterns, energy and flow while responding to what is happening in the moment.