Art Heals
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Hello! First of all, I just migrated my email service from Mailchimp to Kit—so it would help me so much if you could simply reply to this email with a simple “I got it” to make sure it went through. I appreciate your help! Now to today's topic: the healing power of art. It's one of my favorite subjects. Many of you know that I wrote a book titled “A Creator’s Guide to Stopping Self-Harm,” which describes how I used creative exercises to resolve a behavior that troubled me for decades. I had excellent guidance from a caring therapist; but it was my art that got me through the tough times when I was alone with my own pain. For years, I literally cut into gesso and dripped red paint into the grooves to rewire a craving to cut my skin. I also painted what I saw when I turned inward. These were things that I couldn’t say out loud, or even write about in my journal. Making art gave a voice to what I couldn’t express in words. The act of painting brought what was stuck inside into the light of day, where it could heal. My artist mother was the first to model this lesson for me. After we lost our home to a fire, she painted burning houses until the pain subsided. Artists like Frida Kahlo (who was disabled by a devastating streetcar crash) and Hannelore Baron (who lived through terror and abuse in Nazi Germany) blew me away with their powerful creations that spoke of their trauma. But you don’t have to be an artist to use creativity to heal. So many studies have shown the benefits of artmaking: it literally re-wires our brains with new neural pathways. You don’t have to be good. All you have to do is be open-minded and willing to draw like you did as a kid, when you didn’t care what anyone thought. Here’s a quick example. Get a pen and paper. Sit down, close your eyes, and locate a spot inside your body where you feel discomfort. Imagine a being dwells there—a little kid, or an animal, or a mythical entity. Let it grow bigger and fill you up. Open your eyes and draw that being. Even if it’s just a scribble, you'll know what it is. Now draw a dialogue bubble and write what that being wants to say. Don’t censor it. You might be surprised at what comes out. And voila, you’ve used artmaking to heal a small part of yourself. That’s all it takes. Draw like a kid and listen to yourself. With love and light, Maggie |
