Art Heals
Why do we need art if we can’t eat it, clothe or house ourselves with it? Does it just fill an empty space on the wall with color?
Several decads ago I was having dinner at a friends house when her spouse began a discussion about why should his taxes fund the local theatre group if he wasn’t interested in going to performances or participating in any way? I was struck dumb. My jaw dropped and I just stared at him not knowing what to say. I knew that his view was that art was unnecessary but I didn’t realize that it extended beyond the walls of his home. I have never forgotten that moment and I wish I could go back in time and re do that conversation. There are so many reasons why I feel art is absolutely essential to our lives. I’ll name a few.
1)Art can evoke a wide range of emotions from joy and excitement, from wonder, to introspection and contemplation. Consider an abstract painting of expressive brushstrokes and vivid colors (Joan Mitchell is my favorite) or Monet’s Water Lillies. Our lives are much smaller when we limit ourselves to what we know and feel right now.
2)Art allows us to explore other cultures and perspectives, expanding our horizons and fostering empathy. We are working from home, spending more time on screens, interacting with others more and more through social media, all making us more isolated and less empathetic. An afternoon in a museum can remind us of the incredible diversity we have at our fingertips and who we are.
3)Art stimulates emotional and intellectual growth and encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills. Next time you are baffled by an abstract painting, consider it for a few minutes. How would you describe it critically? (Not “my 6 year old could do this”.) What colors, what kind of marks, what feeling does it have compared to another painting. Why?
4)Art is a form of self expression which can offer solace, inspiration or a deep form of communication between artist and viewer. This communication can’t be explained but rather, felt.
A visit to a museum can ease anxiety, depression even chronic pain. Read an article on this subject from Hyperallergic here.
What do you think? Send me a comment, I would love to hear your view and personal experiences about this.
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When art surprises you
I am usually drawn to one type of art, scribbly marks, brushstrokes visible in blending paint, an intuitive feeling where you can feel the artist’s hand and energy. That is the way I like to make art and what I like to look at. I was delighted to be surprised by Terry Tsu’s paintings with geometric shapes, hard lines defining the edges and bright saturated colors. These are things that usually make me shudder or walk past but I an enchanted by these paintings! And I am doubly excited that I like something that I usually consider out of the realm of what I usually like.
Our tastes change as we grow, learn new things, get exposed to new ideas. we find new things we like and sometimes change our mind about what we like or don’t. I love being surprised when I find something I like that I had previously decided would be on the notlike list, like Terry Tsu’s hard lines and geometric shapes. I visited the Metropolitan Museum a few years ago and, getting lost, found myself in the byzantine art room. The madonna statues were so sublimely beautiful I gasped and stood with my mouth agape. And to think, when I was in college, I found them boring. What a dolt I was! I recently saw the Cezanne’s drawings exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Again, my witless college freshman self could not comprehend Cezanne and why my teacher went on rhapsodic about drawings and paintings that all looked the same to me. Now I stood in front of them and made the same gasp. How wonderful to be presented with evidence of our own growth! Thank you Terry Tsu, Paul Cezanne, unnamed Byzaantine artists and countless more to come (I hope!). What changes have you discovered in your likes/dislikes lists?
Mark Making
Several things continue to fascinate me year after year in my art making, faces, tearing paper, mark making. The term “markmakimg” is the latest art lingo for any kind of marks, pencil scribbles, ruled lines, expressive brushstrokes. We make marks every day and we often discount them as unworthy of our attention. Scribbly hand written grocery lists, telephone (or zoom) doodles, accidental or stray marks or scratches, a quick drawing showing the dimensions of a garden. These marks are special because they are all marks made by you that show what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, what you’re holding. Your mark is unique to you. If I told a group of 10 people to make a quick scribble without thinking, all of the scribbles would be different. Some would be sharp and angular, some curvy, some delicate, some bold, some random some deliberate. All would represent a piece of you.
When I make scribbly brushstrokes or pencil marks in a painting, that’s me on a canvas. My mark is like my handwriting, unique to me. I love to stand in front of a Van Gogh painting (on those rare occasions I can actually stand in front of an original Van Gogh) and see his brushstrokes and I can imagine that he stood exactly where I am standing (relative to the painting), and how he held his brush, what he might have been thinking or looking at when he made this brushstroke, how he made repeated short strokes and didn’t try to blend the paint and erase his mark. It’s thrilling. I can feel Vincent. When you look at my random seeming marks, you are feeling me.
Checkout my paintings chock full of marks and scribbles here!
That Stuck Place
I realized recently that I’m a bit stuck. Sometimes that stuck feeling creeps up on you. I thought I was doing just fine, going at a much slower pace, dealing with being shut in like a pro. But my motivation to make art is waning. Less and less new ideas. Maybe I’ll sit on the couch, eat popcorn and binge watch The Crown. But there’s that little voice that says multiple nights of this is not what I really want.
I live in New York City and love taking advantage of all that it offers. Usually I’m going to museums, concerts, walks in the park, and theatre, dance opera. Due to Covid, the weather and my hip impingement that’s all a sweet memory. At first I thought I’d take advantage of all this time and make lots of art. But I’ve found that when life is the same every day, without the fun, interesting, inspiring stuff I had at my fingertips, I’m left feeling without the urge to paint, few ideas of something I want to try, no dreams of a painting waiting to happen. That’s just sad.
When I’m in a painting rut I wake myself up by doing something different. Use that color that I usually shy away from. Make a crazy “messy”painting. Don’t aim to make a “finished” painting, just mess around and have fun! Those are some of my usual go to fixes when I’m in that stuck place. Now the 100daychallenge has shown up. Do something creative every day for 100 days. And post it. January 31 I started my project of doing an 8” x 8” mixed media piece of a face (or figure) using some combination of collage and paint.Every day. (More or less.) It’s been two weeks and I’m reminded that I don’t do well with strict schedules and rules. But I can make up my own rules so It’s ok if I don’t make one every single day. Most days is ok. This challenge is giving me a little structure and accountability (I’m not sure to who, the Instagram community maybe?) And I’m enjoying working on something different than my usual abstract paintings. So I will keep going and posting.
I’m finding wildly different ways to make a face. Some look like pretty normal faces, some are a little scary, I’m told, some are almost not there. I like pushing the boundaries of a face, or portrait. How far can I go until it stops being a face? If you’s like to see more faces follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com@laurasalzberg.
Are you in a Covid/lockdown/winter rut? Are you in a similar stuck place? How do you get yourself out? I’d love to know. Tell me in the comment box below.
What Stays?
I’ve read many blogs and posts, as I’m sure you have, about what a crazy, difficult, painful year this has been. I’m not going to write another blog about that. It’s also the time for new years resolutions. I don’t do those any more since I almost always break them after a month or so. But I can’t help thinking about what changes will remain from this year of imposed reform. we will look back and think of how it used to be before 2020. How long will we continue to wear masks? I bet more companies will allow employees to work remotely, more zoom meetings. Zoom parties and gatherings. I think restaurants will come back, but differently. Maybe more food trucks, more take-out only places. Some changes I welcome, others I am glad to see go.
Looking inwardly, I’ve taken stock of changes I see in myself. I’ve had to reorder some priorities. My health (and state of mind) are more important than concerts, movies, dining out, traveling, so much more. We all have had to make the same sacrifices. What other changes would I want to keep? I’ve been doing yoga at home on my living room floor. I love that. I’ve spent more time in my little home studio. That’s a love/I-can‘t-wait-to-get-out kind of thing. But it has led to a new body of work in a different style. I’ve been taking more time to think about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I’ve been cutting myself a little more slack lately. It’s ok if a painting isn’t working out the way I wanted. It’s ok if I haven’t stuck to my studio schedule. If I haven’t posted on Instagram for a while. The world won’t fall apart, my art practice won’t stop, I’ll be ok. Life will go on, but differently. Maybe some changes for the better.
What do you think? What changes do you see in the world that you think will stay? In what ways have you changed that you want to keep? Let me know in comments below.
I Like It, But Should I Buy It?
I’m Not That Kind 36” x 36”
July 19, 2020
How do you know if you should buy a piece of art? Spending money on art doesn’t result in visible improvements like fixing a drippy faucet or painting a house but having art in your home does something else. Looking at art can ease stress, improve cognitive function and even boost your immunity. Living with art improves all our lives but how do you know what art to buy?
I hear people say that they don’t know enough about art to know if a piece they’re looking at is really good. Or is it worth the money? So here’s my rule of thumb. If it makes me gasp (literally) or smile, or if I feel drawn back to look at it again and again then I love it and would love having it hang in my home. The question isn’t whether some art critic will approve of your decision, the question is do you like it? Love it? Really, really, love it? Then yes, buy it. But is it worth the money? When I buy anything expensive I ask myself how much is this thing worth to me? If I feel kind of meh about it then I don’t want to spend a lot, but if I really love it, wake up the next day thinking about it, then I’ll spend more to have it.
For the sake of transparency, my art is for sale. Most of the work on my website is for sale. But this post isn’t about buying my art. You can find a lot of inexpensive art on #artistssupportpledge on twitter or on Instagram. Work is available in the artist’s support pledge for less than $200, a good way to get your feet wet as an art patron. So try it and bring some beauty into your home!
Why Risk?
“You Know What To Do” 36” x 36” acrylic on canvas
August 29, 2020
Risk is everything. A lesson I have to relearn over and over. I was working on a series of paintings recently, two of then were coming along and the third just wasn’t working. It was nowhere. I knew I had to do something , but what? If you don’t know where you’re going, doing anything is a risk because it could be a wrong turn. I decided to use up my leftover paint and just put it all over the painting. It didn’t matter where or how, just do it. I painted without thinking, without worrying if it was “good” it didn’t matter, I couldn’t make it any worse. After a while I stood back and realized it looked OK. Maybe it was done! Sometimes the risk, that thing you know you want to do but scared to do, that’s just what is needed. You could fall on your face. Putting that big red mark on that blue painting. Or telling someone you love them for the first time. Painting your living room red. Sometimes you just know it will work. You just have to take a deep breath and jump in. It might work, it might not. But here’s the thing, even if it doesn’t work you are richer for trying it. Even if it’s not right, it tells me what to do next. I learn something. When I’m painting and I paint that big red mark it immediately wakes up that stuck painting in a way that makes my eyes widen. Sometimes I immediately know it doesn’t work and I wipe it off and all that’s left is a little smear of red which is exactly what the painting needed. It’s always a wow moment. Partly because of the result, or because of what I learned, or because I was surprised. Again!
What risk have you taken lately (big or small) in your life? Let me know through the contact page!
Listen To The Kids
Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is wondrous and so enriching to your own (adult) point of view. I found this out when I was fresh out of college; I got a job teaching art in an after school/Saturday program to inner-city kids who had little to no exposure to art. There was a pair of siblings, a sister and younger brother aged 7 and 4 or so. The older sister told me that it was a waste of time teaching her brother to do art. “He just scribbles”. He did appear to have some learning delays but we drew and scribbled away as his sister looked on with disdain and shrugged her shoulders. As Christmas drew closer my director gave me money to do something special. He suggested the Rockettes Christmas show. So I took my group of 10 or so kids and an assistant to Manhattan to see the Rockettes. Having never seen the show myself I had no idea that you had to buy tickets weeks in advance. So we got there and saw long lines of ticket holders and I soon found out that they were sold out. I had to think fast. We were in midtown Manhattan, it was cold, I couldn’t just take them back home. Then I realized that my favorite place in the city, The Museum Of Modern Art, was nearby ! So, off we went, my assistant scowling (she wanted to see the Rocketts). With no agenda in mind but to expose them to art we went to see the art of the 20th century. We saw a painting of an abstract landscape with bright colors and flat fields of color. I walked past it as I assumed the kids would never understand it (I barely did). One of the kids stopped and stared and said pointing to the painting “Theres a lot of space in there!” It took 4 years of art school for me to understand that! We saw Duchamp’s “Woman Walking Down Stairs” and I asked a student what he saw, expecting to explain cubism and show him the woman in the picture.
Duchamp “Woman Walking Down Stairs”
He answered me casually “it’s someone going down stairs.” No bid deal. It’s obvious, right? We saw Jackson Pollock’s drip painting “One : Number 31” . I was excited to show it to my young student who only scribbled and his sister. He took one look at it and his mouth dropped and he said with astonishment and joy “Scribble scrabble!”
Jackson Pollock One : Number 31
We tend to think that young children don’t understand abstract are but they do. Probably because they are open to whatever they see and allow it to take them anywhere. They look at art and are comfortable to experience it however it hits them. As adults we tend to try to fit our experiences of the world into boxes that we understand. We look at art and wonder “what it means”. Those children reminded me that art can mean anything to anybody. Memories from that afternoon stay with me as some of my happiest. The Rockettes don’t compare.
Museums are starting to open again so take your kids. Don’t underestimate them. Let them lead you. Listen to them. They will show you things you hadn’t noticed or thought of before. They will amaze you.