Why Make Art?

Why Make Art?

What is all the fuss about with this creative art-making thing? It seems that we have moved into a period where everyone is trying their hand at it and… liking it! Truth is, making things and creating art is integral to human wellbeing and survival and has been as far back as our earliest expressions on cave walls. Everything made by humans, from its design to its placement in our world, involves art. Right from birth we are surrounded by color, form and pattern. We respond to each other based on what we see, sense and find out from there. We choose a wine based on the label (you know it!) and the car based on how we think we will look and feel driving it. We seek art out at museums and galleries and we come together to socialize as we create. Art is an important element of what connects us as a society and keeps us in touch with our spiritual, physical and emotional health. It is no wonder that creating art has such a widespread appeal - it may be just the thing to heal us.

Creating art (in my case it’s painting) offers us so many positive side effects, it can be hard to put the brush down. Many of my students are retirees trying out something they have long wanted to do or return to. It gives them a relaxing and yet challenging way to feel connected, create goals and keep learning new things. It is something you can do as a group or develop on your own. It keeps us engaged in our world.

Physiologically, art making has a profound effect on stress. It has been shown to decrease cortisol levels and thereby reduce the trigger response in individuals who regularly turn their hand at art making. As we paint, for example, we become so focused on what is happening at the end of our brush that we can often forget what we worry about, even for a moment… We are reminded that there is more to our world, to our life and more to discover. There is hope. 

More than anything, creating art brings us back to our discovery of the world around us when we proudly proclaimed, “look what I made!”. It gives us an indescribable feeling to see something of beauty and replicate it, or the emotion of it- to have our hand in the creation and recreation of our beautiful world.