I think it is funny, all these paint-and-drink events I keep reading about. This is a new trend – to get people to come out for an evening of painting and drinking. Perhaps they have to drink in order to paint? Perhaps they have to loosen up in order to let out their inner artists.
To me, being artistic is intoxicating enough. I don’t need extra. But I certainly understand that other people do. I remember when I did.
I remember when I thought that the only time I could be creative was when I was stoned. I remember one of the reasons I used to say I could not stop smoking pot was that it would stunt my creativity.
Nothing is sillier than that. Pot and booze don’t make you creative. They just make you forget yourself.
And maybe that is the point. We get stuck in our view of ourselves. We create these rigid roles of who we are. We are shopkeepers, or secretaries. We are adults, parents, responsible people. We have grown past being creative, right?
But we haven’t. Art isn’t just for kids, just like reading isn’t just for kids. But then again, that too could use some work. Way too many parents get books for their kids and not for themselves. Reading, and art, is for everyone.
Create art, however you can. Creating art is healing for the soul. It won’t look pretty at first. It doesn’t ever have to look pretty, in fact. It just has to happen.
I create something every day. I think of it as a vitamin for my soul. I write, paint, draw, collage, or bead. Sometimes I do several of these. Sure, I have a full time job and run a house. Yet I make time to create every day. If I don’t, I feel out of sorts. I’ve learned that creating things isn’t extra. It is everything.
When I create, I don’t forget myself. I find myself.
Art, unlike alcohol or drugs, has no negative side effects. Don’t ask your doctor if art is right for you. Just do it.
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Unsatisfied art
Part of being an artist is never feeling satisfied with your creation. It is why you started creating to start off with. You feel that something needs to be fixed. You sense something is missing.
So you get out your brush and your paper or your clarinet and your tape recorder. You get to making stuff. You know that something needs to fill that hole you can sense, and that you are the one to try. But that same feeling that made you start is the same feeling that will make you feel that you aren’t finished – that your art isn’t good enough. That same feeling will make you think you should throw it all away.
Perhaps there needs to be a “Post Secret” for artists. Perhaps there needs to be a revelation of the mental process of artists, in the same way that magicians (sometimes) reveal how they do their tricks. You think you are doing it all wrong, but you just don’t know that everybody else is having the same problem. Perhaps that is part of what this post is all about.
I hate pictures of myself. My eyes don’t match up. One looks more “open” than the other. If I post a picture of myself, I’m either looking at the camera at an angle or I’m smiling so my eyes are squinting. Then it is harder to see that my eyes don’t match.
Then I started looking at other faces. I work in a library, so I can look at author photos on the back of books. I started slowing down and really noticing them. Almost all of them look “off”. Almost all of them have one eye different from the other. I finally realized that I look “normal” by looking “abnormal”.
Then I thought about something I was told years ago. I was told that when making a Persian rug, the artist will intentionally make a mistake so the rug isn’t perfect. It is to say that only God can make something perfect. In a way this seems arrogant. If you can intentionally make a mistake, you could then presumably make it perfect. But I think that isn’t the idea. The idea is that imperfection is OK, and it is part of being human.
Jesus tells us that. Jesus tells us that we can’t ever get to 100%. The test is rigged by the world. Jesus tells us that we are OK the way we are as long as we are trying to do the right thing.
I know someone who rewrote her book four times before she published it. I think that is such a waste of time and energy. Sure, there is something about putting your best work out there. But there is something about knowing that you are constantly changing and evolving, and your work is too. What you wrote/drew/painted/composed a year ago will be totally different from what you will create today. That is normal. Just keep creating. Just keep trying.
I know people who never start anything because they are afraid they won’t do it right. I’ve been that way. I’m glad I got over it. Well, mostly. I understand the logic of it. If you don’t start, you’ll never fail, right? Except if you don’t start, you’ll never learn and grow. You have to start, but you also have to let go. You have to be OK with it never matching up with what you envisioned in your head. That is part of being a creative person.
You’ll get closer and closer to being able to bring forth what you imagine the more you try. And some of being an artist is being OK with the happy accidents, the discoveries, along the way. While you are trying to get to one idea, something else will happen and take you down another road. That can result in some pretty amazing work. That can also derail you and leave you stranded.
Part of being an artist is knowing how and when to rein yourself in, and when to let yourself go. Sometimes the art will try to take over. Sometimes you should let it. Sometimes that is just an excuse to goof off and not get things done.
Trust the process, right? Sometimes. The best learning comes from making horrible mistakes. But you have to do something. Art doesn’t make itself.
A bad part about being an artist is that you never think you are done. Whatever you have made, it never feels “complete”. It is like me with my eyes. But then I got away from looking at myself and I looked at others. Art is the same. Nobody ever feels like their art is complete. You are normal.
Just keep making stuff. Don’t let the monster win. The monster is the thing that says you can’t do it, that you are no good. You defeat it by making stuff anyway.
Real art versus copy
I really like Nick Bantock’s art in the “Griffin and Sabine” series. Something I like about it is it seems so dreamy and ethereal. He uses bits of photographs and stamps and other ephemera in order to create his art. There is acrylic paint, certainly, and tissue paper as well. But the most important part to me is that he uses objects.
I read his book “Urgent 2nd Class” about how he makes his art. He says to make color photocopies of everything you use and not use the originals. I felt cheated when I read that. I thought that everything he was using in his artwork was real. It gave it all a magical, totemic quality, a sense of risk. Now, not so much. Sure, it is beautiful, but it isn’t the same to me.
I’ve been making collage art, inspired by him and others. I’m torn as to whether to use copies or originals. I can see the points for both sides.
It might be easier to not use the real thing because then there’s not as much pressure. If I make a mistake with the real thing, I’m in trouble. There is no going back like with beads or with digital manipulation. Paint is permanent, and so are scissors. One wrong blob or cut and I’ll have to figure out a way around it or scrap the whole thing.
I could certainly play around with a copy first while I figure it out. Then I could make the final version with the real stuff. But I don’t really have time to make multiple versions of the same things, and I know from all my other forays into creating art that whatever I think it is going to be, it never is. So even if I get it “perfect” with the copies, it will look different when I use the real stuff. Plus, half of the reason I create is the discovery. It is nice to get what I see in my head, but it is also nice to be surprised when something works out better than I planned.
Well, I’ll be honest. It wasn’t nice at first to have things not come out the way I’d imagined. But I’ve learned to like it. At first I was pretty upset that what I was aiming for just wouldn’t materialize. I had all the pieces – how come they won’t go together like I think they should? But sometimes what results is far more interesting. Sometimes it isn’t, but then I just don’t tell people what I was aiming for. I act like I meant it to look like that. Even if it does look like what I was planning for, they wouldn’t know anyway.
Using the real thing could certainly be intimidating. It might make me not even start on the piece.
Sometimes when creating art you have to think about what will make the art happen. Sometimes having limits helps, and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes having limits on what tools or techniques you can use will actually make you more creative. Sometimes it might stop you before you even begin.
For now, I’m using originals, but I’m doing it carefully. I’ll try out something with a real piece (like a stamp, or a foreign bank note, or a fortune from a cookie) but maybe it isn’t “the” piece. I’m learning how that kind of paper works with the glue and the paint I’m using. Then I can use that knowledge for when I make a “real” piece, with more meaningful ephemera.
I can see another advantage to using copies – the paper is always the same. So there is no adjustment to be made for different textures or absorption rates. If the materials are all the same, it frees you up to work on composition and style.
But I still feel like that is cheating the audience. I like the idea that what they are looking at can’t be replicated. If there are copies of the ephemera being used, then another copy of the artwork can be made. Sure, it won’t look the same – that is part of the nature of art in general and painting in specific, but it will be close. Part of what I like about creating artwork is that each piece is unique.
A painting that has real things in it has an energy to it, like a shaman’s necklace. Each item has a story, a background, a history. Each piece adds to the song. They aren’t just images, but the actual thing. A picture of a shell isn’t the same as a shell itself. And just any old shell isn’t the same as a special one – say the one you found on your anniversary trip. It is that kind of energy that I’m talking about. You just can’t get that from a copy.
These are some examples of what I’m making.
side view –
Art for free, part two.
I once had a problem with ladies who were looking at my beaded jewelry. They asked how long it took to make. Because it didn’t take long, they didn’t appreciate the cost.
I’ve made jewelry for over 20 years. I know what I am doing by now. It doesn’t take long, once I have the idea in mind. But artistry and the cost of the beads (!!!) has to be factored in.
They don’t get it. They are thinking they get paid $15 an hour, and if this takes me 20 minutes to make, it shouldn’t cost $40.
I could lower my prices, but then I feel like I’m being used. I’ve heard that in Arabic countries you can buy gold jewelry for just the price of the gold. The artist gets nothing. The price is based on the type of gold and how much it weighs. Perhaps that is what people expect me to do with my beads. Just charge them the price of the beads, and nothing for the skill or the creativity.
Perhaps I should start telling people that each necklace takes three days. That would factor in the time involved in getting to the bead store, thinking up a design, trying it, and then finding out it doesn’t work the way I thought it would. Then wait a day fuming about it and rethinking it, and try again and discover what comes out.
Some pieces do take forever. Some go fast. Some never sell. Some sell very quickly. I don’t make anywhere near enough money to make a living at this, but I still don’t want to be insulted. I’d rather rip apart a design and reuse the beads than sell it at just the cost of the beads.
Art for free.
There has been a recent discussion on a creative page I’m a member of. It is about trying to get the public to understand why art costs what it does. People aren’t willing to pay the asking price for art. They want it for free.
People think they can make whatever you have made themselves for cheaper. They don’t understand the time and training necessary to create that piece of art. Or, they try to talk you down on the price. They want Tiffany quality work for Wal-Mart prices.
Now, it doesn’t help that there are a lot of people who say they are artists who put out terrible work and charge high prices. Millions of dollars for a Jackson Pollack piece? Really? It is paint, thrown at a canvas. A child could do better.
I once read a story about a jewelry designer who was dealing with a difficult customer. The customer balked at the price of a wire and stone necklace – pointing out that the price of the items was a lot less than the price on the necklace. The artist sent her a box with a spool of wire and the stones. The necklace was reduced to its parts. The customer called and complained. The artist pointed out that if she wanted it to be put together, she could do it herself, since all she was willing to pay for was the materials.
There is a lot more to art than materials. There are the years of learning and polishing the craft. There are all the mistakes and wasted supplies, learning how to perfect a new technique. There’s a lot of time and energy put into being an artist. It isn’t something that just happens. A good artist makes it look easy. It isn’t.
There are also incidental costs to art. Shipping supplies aren’t free. Marketing isn’t free. Display racks aren’t free. The same is true for pop up tents for art shows. Entry fees are rather steep. Then you have to schlep your stuff to the show and back, in containers, that again, aren’t free. There is wear and tear on your vehicle and yourself. It all adds up and has to get factored into the cost of the art.
I have found that I enjoy the transaction more if I’m selling to another creative person. S/he understands value and doesn’t haggle. So maybe that is it. We need to actively teach other people to engage with their artistic side. They will understand how much work is involved, what quality is and isn’t, and they will become artists to boot.
Perhaps some artists won’t like that idea. Perhaps they think there will be competition. Perhaps they think that if everybody can do it, then they won’t have a monopoly on art. But then I think they might make art for the wrong reason. Everybody should make art. It is healing to do.
I honestly think that if more artists taught other people to be artists, then the public would be happier to start off with, and more understanding of what goes into making quality art. Then they’d be willing to pay real prices for real art.
Deer Yeshua
So I bought this bit of artwork. And I made it into something else.
I didn’t think to take a picture of it when I started, so here is a picture of it after the first day.
It said “Yeshuaddix!” in spraypaint.
Yeshua Addix.
Addicts.
Jesus freaks.
I’m for Jesus, certainly. This is a little weird, even for me. But I like a nearly free canvas. It was on sale at Thrift Smart, and I had a Groupon. This two foot by three foot “painting” cost me $6. I had no compunctions about painting over it. It isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch.
I don’t have (I don’t make) enough time to paint every day. I steal away a bit here and there. I decided to mess around with this canvas and see what happened. I practice “blob” art. I put a bit of paint straight from the tube onto the canvas. I put another color, and another, then I swirl it around with my fingers. It releases my inner three year old. Pretty fabulous, actually.
It is hard to wrench myself away and become a responsible 45 year old, but I have to. It pays the bills.
Here’s a closer shot of a really interesting bit.
Then I finished it.
I left two lines of the silver spraypaint – one slightly obscured – to remind me of the underpainting.
I just enjoyed putting the paint on the canvas. I enjoyed the playtime. It doesn’t have a theme or a goal.
I posted my blog post about “Blob Art” on the Facebook page of a creative group I belong to, and one member wanted an example of what I meant by “Blob Art”. I took a picture of this and posted it.
Her comment was “Looks like an aerial view of a deer by a tree. Were you seeing that?”
Nope. Not at all. I like that she saw that, and it proves my point. People see what they want to see. All art, whether representational or abstract, changes meaning when it leaves the hands of the artist.
So this is Deer Yeshua, like Dear Jesus, or Dear John.
WordPress turned the first two pictures sideways, in spite of my best efforts. It does what it does. Feel free to pick up your monitor and turn it to compensate.
God is in the darkness
I was painting the background for a space picture. This alone is a new thing for me. I’m trying to learn that it is OK to work on a project over the course of time. I’m trying to learn to do things in stages. I don’t have to do the whole thing at once.
I’m not sure where I got the idea that I had to finish a painting all at once. I have wirework projects that I can’t finish all at once. The work is too hard on my hands and wrists to complete it in one day. There are certainly beading projects that are sitting in plastic bags in bins right now, half finished. I may never finish them.
Perhaps part of it is that acrylic paint can’t be worked with once it is dry, and it dries very fast. Beads don’t care. With beads, I can take the whole thing apart and redo it as many times as I want. Paint isn’t forgiving like that.
But I keep reading about image transfer and collage, and I keep thinking it is cool. I’ve got all the materials I need (I think) and I’ve read quite a number of books about it. I still don’t think I know what I am doing, so I haven’t tried. But I’m trying to convince myself that if I don’t try, it is worse than trying and failing. Not using art supplies for fear that I’ll mess them up is worse than using them and not getting what I was aiming for. At least when I use them, I’m learning how to use them, and I’m learning what works and what doesn’t.
All the image transfer and collage techniques are multi-day projects. You have to paint the background, and let it dry a day. Then you paint a layer of clear glue on it. And let it dry a day. Then put something else on. And let it dry a day. You get the idea. Lots of waiting. Lots of days.
Part of my issue is that I want results now. I’m trying to get over that. I’m trying to use these kinds of projects to get over that. I always have “quick” projects to give me that “I made something” buzz, in the meantime.
So, back to the painting. I needed a black background, but I didn’t want to use black. That is too easy. So I used a really dark grey called Paynes Grey, and a really dark purple called Dioxazine Violet (Hue). I squirted some of each on the canvas and swirled them around and together. I really like the color I got. It isn’t traditionally black, but it is plenty dark. I figure space isn’t black, but more purple/grey, if it had to have a color.
In reality, I figure it is the absence of light, and that doesn’t have a color at all.
But then I didn’t like the lines in it. Because I use my fingers to paint, there were large lines in it. No matter how I swished and flicked my fingers, the lines were still there. I don’t want lines, because they will draw attention to themselves. This is a background. Backgrounds are supposed to stay in the back, right? They are the supporting role, not the main character.
So I started “writing”. I have a friend who does “light language”- which is really the gift of tongues. It can be done with the voice or with writing. Her coming out about it has reminded me of the fact that I’ve done this for years. I stopped doing it because it felt silly. I got really self conscious of it and stopped. I never showed anybody what I was doing. I guess there was some shame in it, because I felt like an oddball.
You aren’t weird if there are other people who do the same thing, though.
So I’ve started doing it again, intentionally. I’m letting the Holy Spirit work through me in this new/old way, and it is really freeing. I’m still really aware how unusual it is so I don’t do it all the time. I’m mindful of my audience.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that a minister told me to stop talking about how God was talking to me, was waking me up at night to give me messages. A minister, telling me to stop talking about God. In church. To church members. Isn’t that the place where people who have those kinds of experiences go? Isn’t that the place where people seek to have those kinds of experiences? Isn’t that the place where people read about other people in the Bible having those experiences?
I’m glad I chose to leave that church rather than to be silent.
So when I started to write on this painting, I learned something. I didn’t write down or record my experience. I spoke the words out loud and “wrote” them in my light language shorthand. When I write this way, I write left to right, then right to left. I kind of make an S across the page, going back and forth, until I am done.
Here is what I remember of it:
Under the sea, and deep in space, it is very dark. The darkness is vast and silent.
There is potential in darkness.
Babies grow in darkness.
The seed is the same way, swelling, stretching.
And God is there in the darkness.
This reminds me of Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Which then leads to Psalm 139-12-16
…even the darkness is not dark to You.
The night shines like the day;
darkness and light are alike to You.
13 For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You
because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful,
and I know this very well.
15 My bones were not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began.
I was afraid of darkness when I started this project, and now I am at peace. I’ve gotten the message that God is there, at work, even if I can’t see it. I’ve gotten the message that God has a plan for my life.
Then this leads me to Jeremiah 29:11-13
11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the LORD’s declaration—“plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
What an amazing message to come from just painting the background to a piece that I don’t even know what it is going to be.
Thanks be to God.
An apple seed, sprouting.
Once more with feeling…
I’ve finally gotten over the idea that I can’t repeat myself when I write. I found that I was bringing up the same examples, the same stories. I really wrestled with this, feeling that I should go back and rework what I had already written, to update it perhaps.
But sometimes it is good to just write, let it go, and move on. If I go back and rewrite pieces, I feel like I’m not moving forwards. And sometimes what I wrote wasn’t immature, necessarily. It was my viewpoint, from that day, at that time. On another day I’ll want to talk about the same topic, from a different perspective.
Beads have helped me with this. Here are two different necklaces, using the same main beads.
In neither was I able to “say” what I wanted to express when I got the beads. I’ve come to realize that is normal. When the beads are jumbled together in the store or in bins, they spark ideas in my head. But when they have to be put together in a line, such as when they are in a necklace, they just don’t come out the same way as they are in my head.
But here’s the thing – what came out looks good, and nobody knows what I had in my head anyway. The only unhappy person is me.
Now – what I do with that feeling is what matters. It could cause me to stop creating. Or, it can cause me to create more, to try to get across what I was trying to “say”. Or, it can cause me to totally reinvent how I use beads. That too might happen.
I’m looking at incorporating beads and paint and collage. Essentially going 3-D with 2-D stuff. While beads are three dimensional, they aren’t in a way. They lay flat on the body, and you only look at them from one side. Going multi-stranded helps – you have colors and textures “rubbing” up against each other from west and east, rather than just north and south. But wrapping around, and under, and through? That is 3-D, and engages the viewer. The viewer can’t see all that is there in one glance, and will never see the entire piece at once. It is constantly presenting new viewpoints and things to discover.
Is that where I am is going? Maybe. I currently don’t have the skills for that. Yet. But that is part of art too. I think part of what makes an artist is a constant low-level feeling of dissatisfaction. If you are happy with things as they are, you don’t need to create.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
But unhappiness is the mother of art.
It doesn’t mean that I’m depressed. How about unhappy, in the sense of dissatisfied? Or feeling like something is missing? That sense is what drives me to create.
It is funny that creating itself, whether music, painting, collage, writing, beading – can lead to unhappiness. I keep feeling like I almost have it, that it is close, but no cigar. But I’m learning how to be OK with that feeling, and use it to create more. I’m learning how to use my tools and get better at what I do. I’m learning to be patient with the process.
When I first started writing, it could take me five hours to get across what I felt I was trying to say. I feel like I’m much more efficient now. And I’ve learned that with anything I do, the “message” may not come across with the medium. No matter how much work I put into it, the audience may not get what I was trying to give them.
That is OK too. I’m learning that just creating is the goal. I’m learning to just let go, and let God work through me, and in me. I learn when I create. The creations aren’t the goal. It is what I learn while I’m making them. If I can sell them to get more materials to create more things, all the better.
Blob art.
There seems to be two ways that art is going these days: hyper-realistic and blob. Either people are painting reality better than reality or they are painting blobs.
Me, I’m in the blob category. Sure, it is fun. And nobody will know when I don’t get what I was aiming for, because what they see looks nothing like anything else anyway. When you try to replicate something that is real, it is easy to tell when you have missed the mark. Blob art is free from this constraint.
But then I see other blob painters charging hundreds, even thousands of dollars for what they made, and I wonder. Is someone actually buying this?
Blob art can be made by toddlers. The more you think, the less it works. In fact, part of the reason I paint blob art is because I want to not think. I want to disengage. I have tried to paint blob art with brushes and other paint tools and I just don’t like it. It is fingers all the way for me.
I call it blob art because that is how I make it. I pick up a tube of paint that looks nice and I squish out a blob of paint on the canvas. Then I pick up another tube and squish it out too. I’ll keep adding blobs until I feel I might have something to work with. Then I smear the blobs around and mix them together until I like the blend and the swirls. Sometimes I add in a few more blobs and mix them in.
It is kind of like how I cook. Spices, colors – it is really all the same. I’m heading towards a goal, and I take whatever I need to get there.
Painting realistically has never made sense to me. Just take a picture. It is faster. Sure, it is pretty impressive to find someone who can paint a picture that looks like it is a photograph. But to me it seems like a waste of time.
Now, one advantage to painting is that you can paint what isn’t there. You can paint all the good stuff and leave all the bad stuff out. This is especially appropriate when you are painting a family portrait and not everybody is available to sit for it at the same time. Or it also works if you are painting something that would be good for a science fiction illustration.
While you can create some pretty amazing things with photo manipulation software, there isn’t really “art” in that. You aren’t making something new, so much as working with what is already there.
Is blob art really art? Sometimes it just looks like someone shoved paint around a canvas. Sometimes they did. Sometimes I do. So is it worth a lot of money?
Sure, the materials are expensive. Paint and canvasses are stunningly expensive. Framing is insane. Sometimes you can get deals on supplies but not often. So there is something about the actual physicality of the piece that will raise the price.
Sometimes what inspires people to admire artwork or writing or music is what it reminds them of. What they see in it has little to do with what the artist put into it. Some swirl, phrase, or riff catches their attention in just such a way and they find that a doorway has opened in their mind, or a bridge has been created.
That is one of the most frustrating things to me as a creator. I really feel like I’ve expressed something well, and people just don’t get it. They may like it, but what they like isn’t what I was trying to express.
Maybe that is why I make blob art. I don’t have as much invested in it. It doesn’t matter if they see something different in it, because I didn’t put anything in it. It is more about what I got out of it.
I discover when I create blob art. I play, too. I learn how the colors go together, and I relax during the creation. There is no stress because there is no specific goal to be reached. Just enjoying putting paint on the canvas is the goal. It isn’t about creating anything. It is about creating me.
Occupy the art.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if our society valued creativity more? Students would get scholarships for their art instead of their ability to play a sport. People would flock to see them perform a symphony they created instead of seeing them face off against each other on the field.
When we support sports over arts, we are supporting aggression over creativity. We are saying with our stadiums and our sports scholarships that violence pays. We are saying that the jocks are the heroes and the artists are the zeros.
Now, we certainly need sports too. We need physical activity. We need movement. There are way too many kids and adults who are inactive and obese. They are way too many people with diseases that could have been prevented by being active. And there are many valuable lessons to be learned from team sports. People learn about discipline and how to work together. They learn about how each member of the team is important to the outcome.
But sports aren’t everything. We can encourage sports and the arts. In fact I think that everybody in school should learn both. Have the jocks learn how to paint or play a saxophone. Have the artists learn how to play tennis or swim.
Arts and sports need to both be offered as team and individual options. There is a lot to be learned in working together and also in shining on your own. Basketball and being a gymnast should be equal. Playing in a symphony and painting a picture should be equal.
People need to learn as many ways to express themselves as possible. Humans have a lot of pent up energy in them that needs to get out. That energy is physical, emotional, mental, psychic, spiritual. We have many different parts to our personalities that need to be expressed. Communication isn’t just with words.
Perhaps when we get to this point that I see, we won’t have any more school violence. We also won’t have anywhere near the levels of depression and anxiety that we currently do.
But let’s not wait for the schools to do it. We don’t have to wait for committees to study this and funding to be allocated and lesson plans to be created. Let’s just do it on our own. Let’s do this from the ground up. Let’s start at home.
Let’s start an arts revolution right where we are. It doesn’t have to cost a lot. Get some crayons and some paper. Buy a kazoo. Go to the dollar store or Goodwill or Big Lots and find inexpensive art supplies. Get a notebook and start writing. Make up a play. Sew a costume. Design a garden or a house.
It won’t look great at first. Nothing ever is. A child’s first steps are pretty wobbly. A first sketch is pretty wobbly too. Just keep doing it. The point isn’t the product. The point is the production. When you are making art, you are making yourself at the same time. The goal isn’t the painting or the sonata. The goal is the part of you that you found along the way.
This isn’t just for kids. Adults of all sorts will benefit too. I’m interested in all people learning to express themselves creatively. I’m a little more interested in getting kids to be exposed to the arts because it means that they will not be as self-conscious about it. They will learn that being creative is a normal part of being human and not an extra.
betsybeadhead 
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