Art and Mental Health Link Love
Your weekly digest of a niche of this astounding Substack writing community and some elaboration, connections, and hopefully community-building
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On Fridays, I share excerpts, links, and ideas related to this topic that are created by other Substack writers doing amazing work here. Learn more about why I do this in the way that I do it right here. In short, it adds to our understanding of the relationship while also creating community around the topic.
Reminder: I draw connections between what the writers are sharing and my understanding of how that relates to art + mental health but this doesn’t mean that the original writer intended that or agrees with it in full or part … I always encourage you to go read the full pieces whose snippets capture your attention here to find out what the writer’s piece intends and offers.
Grounding Us As We Begin
From
of in Warning: May contain audacious dreams“Write down your dreams, however audacious and impossible they might seem, but then hold them gently. Forget about the timeline. You aren’t in control of that. Close the notebook, get on with your life, choosing every day to do the things which are most likely to take you in the direction of those dreams, without being attached to the form of their manifestation, or the schedule for them coming true, and then see what happens. Take action, let go. Take action, let go. Dance with the universe and trust in the power of your notebook. Prepare to be amazed.”
Every writer writing here has dreams both small and big.
From the past week or so then …
Mental Health and Creative Content
of in Subtracting … Explanation
shares about “a certain exhilaration that can take place inside an artist when she chooses not to explain” …
“Equating approval with ‘explanation’ is plainly ridiculous – my own love of art often depends on the work’s inherent sense of mystery, the maker’s gift of space in which I can make my own meaning from it. And nothing is more tedious than an over-explainer. Nevertheless, I realise that this equation has lurked inside me for a long time. It’s partly a people-pleasing impulse, some subconscious need not to inconvenience anyone by causing the slightest confusion. But more soberingly, I now see the explaining impulse as the desire for control of my reader. My describing a vase, for example, so precisely that there can be no mental picture available to the reader except the exact one I give them, may not be a gift to that reader. It may be a straitjacket.”
What challenges or desires in your own personality, such as the need to people-please, show up in the content you do or don’t add to your work and how might things change if you shift that?
Mental Health and Creative Medium
of shared Camera as Sketchbook
discussing a time in life when she wanted “security in knowing” and her creativity was a reflection of the comfort of rigidity.
At that time, I practiced collage and drawing. My work was exact. It was measured. And calculated. In a lot of ways, this played into the themes that went on to be relevant in my creative practice. I immersed myself in understanding human-built landscapes. I obsessed over architecture, natural landscapes, and the liminal space that exists between the two.
It felt like I thrived here. In the rigidity and tightness. I thought I liked it even. And proceeded to hold onto that knowing for another seven years.
But then she changed and became more drawn to uncertainty and has switched mediums accordingly.
I find it helpful to acknowledge where we’re at with wanting the security of repetition and a “small life” vs. uncertainty and risk and a “big life”. Neither is bad nor good, we need different things at different times, and allowing our medium or other aspects of our creativity to reflect that can be helpful.
of shared in The Aesthetics of grief
about how our medium often changes during periods of grieving.
“Because I couldn’t write very well at this time, I transformed my artwork to try and process these big feelings. I began plein air painting, and making landscapes and images of veils rather than painting the portraits and interiors I had been doing leading up to the pandemic.
Amber said her artistic practice also transformed during the grieving process. She moved from primarily working in sculpture to paintings of plants and flowers. In 2022 she presented a solo show of work dedicated to her mom called Pegi’s Garden. The work is bright, with a slight sense of disease caused by the swirling patterns and sometimes jarring color combinations. … Another evolution in Amber’s art that came out of this time is her interest in urns. When she went to find one for her mom, she was disappointed by the selection which was serious and expensive. This inspired her to start making urns that she would want for mom and for herself.”
I did a lot of grief writing when my father passed but there have been other times when writing didn’t work for me because I just didn’t have words and in those times I turn to the rhythmic healing of crochet and the visual expression of collage.
RELATED: From by in Seeing, seeing, seeing more
“We cannot know what we don’t know.
But as we learn we have opportunity to embrace the mysteries and magic. And that has been what the simple act of daily sketching has been for me. An adjunct to my larger work, it started in earnest as a way to quieten a stressed feline family member I adored, and became a practise to ease me through the grief of last year. And now it is an anchor, and a series of secret doors, and a seat under a rose arbour, and soaring on griffon wings above icy mountains, and laying under ancient trees.
It is everything, because it is simple, and connective, and an act of conscious courage.”
Mental Health and Creative Flux
of shared All The Pretty Flowers, All The Good Books, Never Enough Time
which is about this persistent feeling that there’s never quite enough time for all the things we desire to creatively do and how sometimes this leads to real stress and anxiety and concern that perhaps it’s a true disorder and wonder if something should be done about it.
“Even if I never had to work another day in my life for money, I would be torn – and yes anxious – over finding time to learn to knit or learn to paint or to become a better photographer or a better flower arranger. Or to find time to write my memoir, time to record Dad talking about the history of our family while walking around St. Peter’s graveyard. Time to go antiquing with my sister, or time to get that hour of walking in with my husband every day. What about the time to do that trip to Scotland? The time to find a warm place to go in the winter?
And time to read all those books!”
I can relate to all of that and also I often see it differently. I shared this quote as a comment on her post:
“Think not of the books you’ve bought as a "to be read” pile. Instead, think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place, and the right mood.“ -Luc van Donkersgoed
And I often see things that way. What I didn’t share was that I have literally over 10000 books on my virtual “for later” shelf at my local library and I keep adding more.
Sometimes, for me, the constant million things “to do” (which mostly honestly are want to dos at least somewhat) can be really overwhelming and stressful and I regularly think that if I just got more organized somehow it would all become easier and I regularly think that I’m going to “get ahead” on things and then it’ll feel better and that is never true.
But also, often for me, I see the abundance of things I do want to do as possibility an richness … In my worst depressive periods, it feels like there’s no point to anything, and sometimes it does help to remind myself of all of the million things I really do want to do, even if I forget in that moment why I want to do them, and that can keep me pressing forward to a new day.
of shared a moving piece called How to Read a Novel in 30 Years
which is about several things but what captured me most was how her experience with depression affected her ability to read and write:
“What I didn’t know was that I was descending into a depression so severe it would become, for periods of time, disabling. All of this will sound impossible to most people because of the jobs I had, and how well I did some of them. But it is amazing how much you can compensate if you have a good enough memory, an ability to visually match patterns, and worked with teams of people who read and repeated many things to you. My reading would return, but my creative writing would not come back until my mid-40s.”
I’ve been immobilized in my creativity, even in my consumption of the creativity of others, at times, as a result of depression, so this all resonates for me.
of shared My Year of Writing Dangerously
which recaps an intention to do a specific type of daily writing in 2023 and what didn't and didn’t work about that …
“A lot of digital ink has been spilled on the topic of daily writing practices and whether or not every writer should keep one. The short version is that of course, it depends—on the writer, on their goals, on the cycles and rhythms of their own creative being. Personally, when it comes to writing, I’m a bit like what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. It’s hard for me to get going, but once I do, it’s hard for me to stop. Even so, I found that six weeks was about the maximum length that I could go with my daily observational writing practice before I started to feel burned out.”
What I love about this is the acknowledgment of the intention and the acceptance that it might not make sense to keep that intention and the beauty and power of adapting and then celebrating what goodness comes out of it anyway. She shares so many interesting writing successes that happened in 2023 despite this intention not being realized in the intended way. What I see here is a value in aiming the arrow and then being okay with wherever that arrows ends up. Or, cliche though it is:
“Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
Mental Health and Creative Business
of shared Year in Review 2023
and I really loved how she acknowledged that the year wasn’t some big celebration of creative success but that there were some great things that she did as a human living this life because really, isn’t that what is important. And this:
“I took a part-time job in February last year, pretty much on a whim, as I was still burnt out (depressed?) and realised that relying on Kaliko to finance a construction site is a bit too much to ask. It would probably be technically possible but also disastrous for my mental health so this is the first time I really stepped in for myself and I am glad I did. I wanted something quiet and easy, so I found a job as Office & HR Management for a company in a culture sector, working mostly for national museums.
I was prepared to suck at it and hate it. After almost a year I think I am actually good at it and I enjoy it. Wait, what…? I know, lol, surprise to me, too. It was a blessing for my well-being: having a steady pay check, more routine in my day-to-day, working in a team again and learning (loads!) of new stuff, proving myself I am actually smart.”
I share this specifically because as a lifelong creative working mostly for myself, I have come to learn that there are critical times in our lives when we might need or want to take on some kind of work that isn’t furthering our creative careers in an obvious way. This can feel like giving up or getting off track but actually it’s just the best thing for us right at that moment. Sometimes having financial stability from an “easy” job is what is actually best for both our mental health and creativity. It doesn’t mean you’re not an artist anymore. In relation to this, I find Barbara Sher’s books on creative living really helpful.
of shared Silent January is Doing its Worst
about the common challenge in January of each year for people running creative businesses to find that the year is getting off to a slow start and to panic with fear and anxiety about what this might mean.
“Whether you run your own business or work freelance, if you define yourself as self-employed, starting the year can be one of the most challenging, confidence draining moments of the whole ‘going it alone’ set up. Everyone is grateful for the end of the barage of emails on 24th December and relishes recuperating from the year’s toil with friends, family and festivities. Slamming that laptop closed for maybe the only guaranteed break of the year is beyond a relief. But when 17th January comes around and the inbox is still absolutely crickets, the deafening silence can start to feel fucking terrifying.
Amongst my many freelance friends who work across creative and media fields, silent January is a well-established phenomenon. Some of them go to pieces with worry every year as the tumbleweed blows through town, others go to Bali to bliss out and ignore the feeling of being no-mates Nancy. But whatever you do, it’s almost impossible to remain untouched by the sense you’ve failed to launch into the new year.”
I haven’t ever experienced this myself, not as a January-specific thing. I have typically earned my bread and butter writing “content” to support other creative writing and most businesses seem to have big plans and goals at the start of a new year so they’re happy to pay for “content”. This year has been different in that I’m in grad school again so I’m just enjoying the winter break and preparing for the new semester so I’m not focused on generating income (but really looking forward to the student loan money that should hit my account soon.)
That said, I know all about the ebbs and flows of income as a creative sole proprietor and the way it can trigger this terrible anxiety cycle about how I’m never going to make money ever again. Which immediately makes me think about this:
From of in I failed at failure
which is about failing a driver’s test but about so much more …
“The irony was, it was my spiralling reaction to thinking I’d failed when I stalled at some traffic lights (I hadn't) that caused me to actually fail. When I made this mistake, I instantly kicked into defeated mode. I completely lost focus on the task at hand, gave up and made a really dangerous mistake that would have resulted in a crash if the examiner hadn’t slammed on the dual control brakes. (I know…)
Once I believed that I’d failed and believed that the whole rest of the exam was pointless, I just tapped out and started berating myself on a loop, thoughtlessly rushing to get back to the test centre and away as fast as possible. (Thank goodness I did fail! Because this girl was NOT safe to be let loose on the roads).”
How Art Heals
of shared Connective Tissue
which has introduced me to a topic I plan to dig deeper into:
“Did you know that in addition to taking classes on anatomy, biology, and pathology, in medical school, your doctor may have spent time doing a close text examination of an Alison Bechtel graphic novel or following a prompt to write about a time when they felt ashamed?
Courses in narrative medicine are part of the curriculum at most U.S. medical schools. A few schools like Columbia University also offer narrative medicine certificate programs and Masters programs. NWNM is a nonprofit organization with a unique blend of widely accessible offerings.
Through storytelling and highlighting a range of perspectives — healthcare providers, patients, caregivers, spiritual advisors and more —narrative medicine aims to improve the delivery of healthcare.”
When Art Harms/ Hinders/ Is Complicated
of shared in their newsletter
some terrific creative lessons learned from taking a course and I love that the list of lessons begins with:
“Putting myself into a learning environment means I think more about my writing. This feels good.
Putting myself into a learning environment means I overthink my writing. This does not feel good.”
I think whenever we stretch ourselves, we may come up against these challenges and tensions where it feels good and not good for a variety of reasons. I think sometimes those of us going through a hard mental health time can get lost in the not good part. But if we can focus on finding the balance where the good exists, remembering that feeling “not good” isn’t always a bad thing, then our stretching can be positive.
The Power of Experiencing Art
of shared Shedding Other Voices and Seeking What is True to Me
which is about a terrific conversation she had with Claire Coenen about the creative life and setting intentions for writing and sharing that writing. In it, this section reminding us of the power of being a reader:
“I share my writing so that others can feel seen. In reading Andrea Gibson’s piece the other day, I realized that every time I read what they write, I feel better about myself and the world. I want people who read my writing to feel that way too. I want my writing to encourage people to let go of shame. I want people to know that they are not alone, that they are part of something bigger, a community. Reading the work of others has offered me so much hope, light and laughter. I offer my writing in reciprocity for those gifts, hopeful that someone will find the same gifts in my words.”
of in Welcome to Mulching
expands really beautifully on the power of how reading impacts us in a piece I highly recommend reading in full that includes, in part:
“These three years of engaging with various writers and thinkers have involved a process of layering rich, compostable material on top of the soil of my mind. Each new idea formed a wood chip, a shred of leaf, a crumb of bark, that carried nutrients from the mind of someone significantly wiser than myself to be mulched into intellectually enriching humus for my brain. The process of meditating on and writing about these ideas took on a similar role to that of earthworms and soil aerators: digesting the nutrients from the humus and working them into the soil, creating something fertile and ready for growth.”
of shared How I learned to dress myself (aged 45 and a quarter)
“There is a dress that hangs in my wardrobe that has no place being there. It is the daintiest little thing: puffed-sleeved, semi-transparent and covered in dozens of laser-cut daisies. It is not my style at all, which has always tended towards the mannish and sombre. Why then has it remained there, worn just once on a summer’s afternoon nine years ago? I shall tell you why: because of the way it made me feel.”
which touches on an aspects of experiencing art that I think most of us engage with but maybe don’t think that much about. Because experiencing art isn’t just taking in great literature or going to an art museum - it’s about everyday fashion and food and all of the other things that delight our senses. There is so much power in noticing that.
RELATED: From The Immortal Jellyfish & Intuition by of
written in a prompt by Alex Bertram about “what Susan Sontag calls the “equivocal magic” of photographs" …
“My mind was lost in the portrait, and the layers embedded in it. What could it tell me about her? Or about the photographer, H. Walter Barnett, who’d slipped from cultural memory? About the circumstances surrounding the making of the portrait—the before, during, and after?
As I explored its story, I saw that I was drawn to the creativity that’s inherent in all the things we interact with in our day-to-day lives but that we do not see. The portrait’s visual tension, insights, and trickery were all part of the same thing: my enduring interest in the hidden creativity of ordinary things. The revelation helped me to arrange my materials and begin to tell the story of the portrait’s life.”
Note: The intro essay by Suleika is filled with richness; do read it!
of in Fine Tune Your Dial
reminds us that the art/content we choose to consume can have a tremendous impact in ways that are both helpful and harmful, and so we must be vigilant about knowing what we might need at a given time and weeding out the consumption of other media that isn’t what we need:
“I’ve been thinking really deeply about what content triggers me with me lately and in my experience, it’s often the posts that find a mainline to my trauma. These posts act like a motion sensor light on a porch at night, illuminating a visitor. I don’t know initially if it’s a friend or foe, but the light helps to show what’s there.
There are times I’m feeling brave and can confidently step out onto the porch to confront who’s there… yet there are other times when fear is all-present and I can’t even make it to the front door.
Be mindful – like, OBSESSIVELY mindful – about what messages you’re letting in. From social media, from the news, from people and from the world at large. It’s what shapes you and affects your precious creative energy.”
Short Shares
A few more poignant passages that I felt moved to share:
of shared From marketing to cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants
which is an interview with writer/chef Wil Reidie:
LM: What’s a word or phrase in Finnish that you love but doesn’t translate to English, and vice versa?
Wil: Not a word or phrase so much, but a construct of Finnish grammar that I find particularly fascinating. It’s something called the partitive case that is found almost uniquely in the Finnic language family. The form designates a lot of different things. It can designate unknown amounts of things, for example. But the partitive also does something else, something more profound.
It suggests the incompleteness of an act, a process, an ongoing action. This is why to love someone is always to love the partitive of that person. If I love you in Finnish, I love sinua (the partitive form of you), not sinä or sinut or any of the other forms of you that exist in Finnish. With this being so, love is always an incomplete act in Finnish. A process. A resolution possible yet never found between two things. The one who loves and the loved. Sinua, the you my love can never fully reach.
From of in My 2024 Intentions: A Year to Delight in My Processes
Life isn’t always easy. I know there will be challenges this year. There will be darkness and hard days and difficult things to deal with. I am a silver linings kind of person, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t hard parts to my life.
That’s why I need the light. I feel it so strongly, that I need this delightful, light and soft energy around my creativity. I need it to balance out and conquer the darkness.
I need the art, the beauty, the silly, the frolic, the inspiration, the delight, the wonder, the good, the creativity. It’s my shining light. That’s what I’m turning towards in 2024.
What I Wrote This Week:
Thanks and Congrats
Thanks to
of for sharing a link to my guide to creating a virtual book tour on Substack, which is one of my favorite articles to see shared. I really hope more people do these in ‘24.Thanks to
for sharing that same post in Writer Office Hours this week. I have often wondered how to get the attention of the Substack team for more promotion and it felt good to have that piece shared.Also thanks to
for continuing more of the conversation about the piece of his I shared in last week’s roundup. “It was very interesting to read the comments, and I was especially delighted with those of Kathryn Vercillo, who made the connection with neurodiversity and dyslexia …”Housekeeping:
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Thank you for including my post in this roundup! So many intriguing ideas to check out!
Thanks for the mention, Kathryn :-)