Art for Life's Sake
It's far more than a luxury.
I don't know that everyone recognizes the intrinsic value of art, and that really bums me out. You know when you just love something so intensely, you want everyone to experience and love it too? I’m not under any impression that we all need to experience and love the same things, but I will say, if there is anything we all might be able to get down with, it’s art. Art is limitless, and so are the ways we can experience and create it.
If all art was wiped from this Earth, I think we’d all notice REAL QUICK the profound role it plays in our lives. The experience of observing art or beauty, anything pleasing to the eye or senses, is not a luxury or a cherry on top of being alive—these experiences have a significant impact on our being whether we’re conscious of it or not. I can demonstrate this with a simple imagining exercise:
Imagine living in a home where everything is a dull shade of grey, all objects are essentially shaped like a box, the space is void of variety, and one uniform texture coats the entire home and all the contents therein. How do you think this would make you feel? Can you picture it? I don’t know about you, but I’d probably lose my mind in less than 24 hours (truthfully…less than 8…4…1). There is no life in a space like that.
Now, conversely, imagine living in a home full of all of your favorite colors and patterns, nuanced shapes and inviting textures delight your senses, plant life thrives from sunlight shining through large open windows, uplifting and intriguing images line your walls. How do you think existing in a space like this would make you feel? Much more alive I would have to guess!
After sitting with this one example, I think it goes without saying how obvious it is that surrounding ourselves with beauty, and truly valuing that beauty, is not the least bit frivolous. It enriches our lives, it soothes our nervous systems, and it ignites our own creative nature! This is something we all may know intuitively, but I love when science proves intuition right, so here is a quote from neuroscientist, medical doctor, and author, Dr. Tara Swart.
“There’s two forms of creativity, beholding and making—and they’re connected. They’re both good for you for different reasons. But when you are consciously spending more time beholding beauty … then it connects up with that pathway in your brain to wanting to make beauty as well. … Even before we could speak we were beating drums, we were dancing, we were humming, we were doing cave paintings. We didn’t really do things for fun, everything had a reason … so all of that beauty was happening, but we had to be creative as well. Being creative was contributing to our immunity, to our health, to our longevity, [and] to our connections as a tribe.”
Dr. Tara Swart on the Know Thyself podcast
When we consider the fact that beholding beauty and engaging our creativity is a defining characteristic of not only our humanity, but our survival, we cannot write off art or the creation of art as a trivial matter. Art connects us to our humanity, it connects us to each other, and it connects us to ourselves. This is art for life’s sake.
When we allow ourselves to be moved by the beauty of art, we allow ourselves to tap into something greater than ourselves. When we allow ourselves the gift of being a creator, we are also tapping into something greater than ourselves! Even when being a creator looks like you tinkering away at something solo. In the mere act of making, you are connecting to everyone who has ever exercised their creative powers. All the way back to the cave painting days, and likely even before that.
Art is a living thing, it propels us forward to new levels of understanding, or better yet, new levels of curiosity. It calls for contemplation, presence, introspection and imagination. In my life, experiencing and making art never felt secondary. It never felt like just something nice to do. Although it can and often is a very nice thing to do, it has always served a deeper yearning or need. It has both revealed and shaped who I am. Creating beautiful things has opened me up to recognizing my own beauty—not the beauty of my appearance, my talents, or capabilities—but to the beauty of who I am as someone who chooses to create beautiful things in and with my life.
Being an artist has given me the gift of recognizing the fact that I am a creator and I get to create the experience of my existence. I have agency in my life, and if you’re reading this right now, it is highly likely that you do too. What and how you create doesn't always have to have some conscious grand purpose or meaning attached to it. Experiencing beauty is reason enough. By its very nature, the act of creation is already doing something beautiful in the world, something greater than we could ever know as individuals.
Let yourself be moved by beauty. See what it brings you. See what you bring to the world because of it.
How has beholding art or beauty moved you lately? In ways big or small. How has creating art or beauty shaped you? I would love to know!