Art and Mental Health Link Love
A digest of this week's things I loved on Substack that I wanted to say a little bit more about ...
Each week, I want to share with you some of the things from other Substack writers that get me thinking. My niche is the relationship between art and mental health, with a focus on trying to understand how various mental health symptoms impact artistic process, productivity, medium, content, self-perception and reception by others. (And I believe that all of us are artists and all face mental health challenges to varying degrees.)
As I share these links, I’ll share the thoughts I personally had related to my niche. Please note that this doesn’t ever mean that it’s what the original author intended … just that I was inspired by their writing, want to give you my own thoughts from my personal lens, and hope that you’ll enjoy checking out their original pieces as much as I do.
REMINDER IF YOU LOVE WRITING ABOUT WRITING
Starting next week I’ll be launching a new weekly post that’s a roundup similar to this one except that it’s entirely about the really smart things people are sharing about writing. It’ll include tips and leads but mostly it will be just lots of inspiration. I’m inspired by people here and I want to elevate and promote that. I’m excited to share this work. But this is all taking a lot of work and time. So I’ll keep this art and mental health weekly roundup free but the new writing one is for paying subscribers. It launches the first week of September and I am excited!!! You’ll find those posts in the “Thoughts on Writing” tab on the homepage.
Other Housekeeping Reminders:
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And I’m happy you are here :)
From the past week or so then …
of wrote in A Love Letter to LA:
“When I arrived in my late 20’s, the city’s relentless sunshine had a way of compensating for what were often overwhelmingly dark conditions in my mind. There were endless blue skies and grand vistas and hikes within city limits! You could happily spend every day of the year outside! There was no humidity! I spent at least the first five years awash in endorphins, sun drunk and vibrating with joy after years of the humid and (to me) infuriatingly variable weather of the east coast. I couldn’t believe you could live like this.
The physical sensation of the climate — light, airy, warm, PREDICTABLE — was medicinal, a miracle cure for a depressive who felt constantly dragged around by moods. Moods that were often triggered by muggy, overcast weather. More to the point, it offered a glimpse of a bright future: one where I was happy and thriving and the darkness could never fully take over. LA felt like my ally in that battle.”
Sara is now moving on to different places and different things and the piece explains why and the beauty of that. But what I wanted to point out is that for us creatives with mental health challenges, PLACE can be a really big factor in how well (or not) we’re doing. I moved to San Francisco because I was in terrible depression in my hometown and I felt a creative thriving in San Francisco that I just knew was the right place for me. I am not sure I’d have ever emerged from depression had I stayed in the place where I’m from. That’s not to say that it was easy in San Francisco - moving with little money and no job to one of the most expensive cities in the country. I obviously couldn’t outrun my depression and I had to deal with it once I was here, too. But I had found my soulmate city and I was going to do anything to make that relationship work. Seventeen years later, we’re still in love.
It’s a different kind of love now than those heady days. San Francisco has its flaws and I see her more realistically now perhaps. This week, it got super hot and muggy and smoky and that physically was hard on me and it made me sad about climate change but also so grateful that most of the time this place physically, weather-wise, supports my needs in the best way.
Obviously, we don’t all have the privilege of moving to a new place. But there are small ways to find that place for yourself if you can’t move. The place might be a spiritual center or nature spot or library in your town. The place might be a different town or city that you find a way to visit on a regular basis because it nourishes and restores you.
Fun aside: In the early days I participated in a project called I Live Here: SF that a photographer was doing sharing stories of people who lived here. It became an art show and my photo hung with many others in both a gallery space and City Hall. Some of what I said about the city then remains true for me, some doesn’t (apparently I hated the weather back then and now I remember how cold I was for the first couple of years before I understood about layers and acclimated!) Either way, it’s fun to look back at that.
RELATED: From On The Intimacy Of Becoming Whole from of :
“In Aboriginal culture, to be Whole means to be in an intimate relationship with Country - but within that physical landscape lives non-matter elements; law, ecology, spirit, ancestors, songlines, sacred maps, and medicine - which then become metabolized by frequent visits to that land.
Without being able to return to Country, many First Nations people cannot return to the essence of who they are (which is why colonialized ‘land rights’ have felt like physical dismemberment to many Indigenous cultures)
Just as we revisit places we love, we meat-out that place with our love and attention. We are offered gifts in return for our presence. But what we often forget is that those places too, put flesh on our bones and we are loved by them in return.
This is no different from our psychological landscape. The thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and emotions that we visit most often are what make life either a dire struggle or a lighthearted curiosity.”
wrote How Substack Taught Me Never to "Like" Again
which really provides a lot of food for thought about the like button here on Substack and across platforms. As I said in a Note when I restacked this:
I have been thinking so much about this since reading it.
@Erica Drayton and I and some others have discussed this a little bit … For me, I don’t mind that there are likes and notifications about likes BUT I wish that I could toggle the notifications in my activities tab so I don’t have to see them. Ditto follows and people’s first published posts. I would love to be able to just see the replies, for example, and then go visit the likes if I ever want to. In general I think readers should have more control over what they must see on a site.
So initially that’s all I intended to respond with but after reading the article and sitting with it, I find myself thinking a little bit deeper about why do we “like” stuff. I think a lot of valid points have already been made in the comments to both sides of this. I think the preferences are going to be different for each person and that’s totally okay, which Erica also acknowledges.
But what’s interesting for me is that my initial reaction was “oh no I don’t think we should stop liking posts.” And I had all the arguments … sometimes you want to like just to acknowledge that you resonated or appreciated something and don’t want to restack or have a comment to say right then, that the algorithm probably wants us to like and so to get pieces seen likes are good … but upon further reflection I appreciate the idea of questioning the whole premise of the like button. I’ve gotten so used to it everywhere that I’ve accepted we must have this and use it. But maybe not. I want to think more on this.
So just curious question - if the like button were completely gotten rid of across platforms including Substack, how would you feel about that?
I also realized that perhaps I’m just someone who likes the option of sorting and organizing things in a way that’s more digestible for me to read. I was thinking that I’d also really love a way to assign categories to my inbox so that I could quickly go to the people’s work who is primarily about mental health or the people whose work is mostly about writing - different tabs or folders. So maybe that’s a me thing but I think any platform is best served by offering a variety of different ways to interact with it so that the user has the power to alter it in ways that work best for them. While I see some of that here, it’s not fleshed out yet, and for me the option to toggle on and off what I see as a reader across the entire platform would be really powerful.
of In Writing With Hattie Crissel invited paying subscribers to join a weekly creative hour and shared:
“My memories of when exactly I stopped [drawing and painting] are hazy, but I do remember that I took a summer course at the Edinburgh College of Art when I was 22, and that it dented my confidence. I hadn’t felt any pressure to be ‘good’ as an artist before that – I thought it was OK just to experiment and enjoy it. Something to do with the way that course was taught, though, made me suddenly feel that I wasn’t doing it right and wasn’t talented enough. It took the pleasure out of my hobby, and after that, I lost the habit.”
These stories are always so heartbreaking because there’s so much benefit to creative practice whether or not you’re “good” at it and who decides about good anyway. Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way, of course, has brilliant writing and practices around this. What I want to say is that anyone with mental health challenges can feel the impact of those negative words from others at an even deeper, more destructive level which is a really important thing for teachers, mentors, reviewers, all of us to remember when we share our constructive criticism or requested feedback.
Hattie goes on to share:
“Since I got home I’ve started doing some drawings, with pencil and oil pastel, and it’s not that they’re particularly good, but the process makes me feel so good. The way I draw is more instinctive and less cerebral than the way I write; the stakes are much lower, because I’m not aspiring to be a professional; and it’s a relief to make something that doesn’t involve staring at a screen.
All this to say: creativity is so uplifting, and I think it’s good to mix up our disciplines. If you’ve hit a brick wall with a novel or a story, an hour of sketching might help you to return with a different perspective.”
Yes, yes, yes. For so many different reasons, some related to mental health, some to energy, some just to being a human, I sometimes find that my preferred medium of the written word doesn’t always work for me. And so I turn to crochet or collage to create in a different way. In fact, although I’ve made a living doing a lot of writing about crochet, I intentionally never went the route of selling crochet items because I needed a creative outlet that was just for me, for process, for fun, for breaking out of the ruts, for gaining a different perspective.
RELATED: From Intro to Watercolor! By of
“Since Durers’ days, watercolor has become the first painting medium we introduce to kids, and the medium often adults returning after a long time away from the arts. Why is that?
Well, it’s simple, safe, portable, and easy to clean. It dries fast. It’s approachable. At the same time, it also has limitless possibilities. High art, low art, kids art, grown-ups art. It’s the every-person’s paint. But to push it to its full potential takes years of practice.”
This is true of crochet as well. It’s an easy craft with few tools required that kids can learn how to do and yet you can also choose to learn a million things within it and you’ll find it occasionally in art museums.
of wrote in Unexpected Gratitudes:
“Sometimes life feels like the tides moving in and out, up and down, directed by a far away something that I don’t understand. It’s the same waters, but sometimes they’re here and sometimes they’re there. Both their comings and goings tend to be a surprise to me.
Art is one of those waters that has ebbed and flowed for me. Childhood was a long, low tide state where making art was not even a conceptual glimmer. One day in early adulthood, however, a friend took me to an art supply store and demanded that I buy stuff to paint with. Years of frustration and disappointment followed until I discovered digital collage.
After that, the tides alternated between making art and writing, until Covid sparked the idea of creating a words-and-art book about that strange time.”
I’ve been noticing lately when people mention that combination of words and art.
and I have had some little chats about it here. It came up with someone else when they saw that Basquiat’s work is a chapter in my book The Artist’s Mind. And it is something that is very present in my own life because I’m primarily a writer but various mental/physical health symptoms sometimes stall the writing and I find that I often turn to magazine image collage in those times. I create primarily image-based work that I then supplement with a few words either from magazines or from text stickers.I’m also curious and dabbling with inputting my creative writing/ old poetry into AI art systems to see what they create. Much can be said about AI art from all kinds of perspectives but because I’m not a visual artist this is a way for me to see one version of my words illustrated. Although it’s not the same, it reminds me of synesthesia, in which people may see colors when they hear music or may taste shapes when they eat food … It’s a condition that’s always fascinated me and one I don’t think it’s easy to understand if you don’t have it. But being able to put my words into a tool that spits out an image gives me just the tiniest tiniest glimpse of understanding into that.
Joyce Wycoff also shared this week: In Substack Field Guide and a Simple Marketing Model, a history of
“over 14 years of blogging for the sheer pleasure of combining words and images”
And also a thought I loved:
“We are more than writers; we are teachers, activists, scientists, artists, entertainers, leaders, journalists, novelists, storytellers, and wisdom sharers wanting to connect to readers who want the wisdom, creativity, and experience we have collected, refined, and translated into informative words and images.”
I am a writer, although sometimes I say “I write” or “I am a person who writes” when I need to be a human being before a human doing. Depending on context, I am also a researcher, an author, a student, a storyteller, an artist, a crafter, a maker, a creative …
RELATED: ON ART + WORDS
From Stars and Travels by Of
about The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Ekua Holmes
“Indeed this is a most felicitous author/illustrator partnership: Holmes’s illustration style, which fuses Pollock-like painterly abstraction with playful collage and a sophisticated flair for representational depiction, imbues Bauer’s words with the correct balance of the psychedelically sublime and the covetably relatable. This one is not to be overlooked.”
In a Note, of said, in part:
“Here in the USA creative business “coaches” and publishers often want us creatives to be either a writer OR a visual artist. A false dilemma if ever there was one!! My experience working with publishing outside the US is that they f'ing love it if you can do both!!! …
And I remember again that we creatives aren't bound by these false dilemmas - we can do more, more play, more nuances… outside the false dilemmas!
Just go create stuff!!!!!”
ON WATER AND TIDES AND EBBS AND FLOWS
I noticed that a lot of people were mentioning water and tides this week, literally and metaphorically.
Like this from On Water by :
“it’s interesting when the tide is low, because i am interacting with the earth, sea, and sky all at once, all of me intermingled with all of it. the swish-step, swish-step is hypnotic. i think i could walk for hours like this. in water shallower than my knees. scouring the ground ahead of me for living things to admire, for a hagstone to treasure, and for birds to watch.”
And this from Beneath the Waves by of :
(which, as you’ll see, I’ve shared more from later in this digest) …
“Arriving at the water’s edge I’m greeted by unexpected waves, both in the water and in the air. One boat, one solitary boat pulling a water skier, buzzing up and down the lake with the radio blaring, sending ripples, making waves, disturbing the peace of the morning.”
of wrote in When Enough is Enough:
which has a great description of feeling jealousy of other people’s vaster, more prolific gardens only to come to realize that her own garden is more than enough:
“My smaller harvest this year has taught me some important lessons. I don’t have any garden burden. I don’t have to worry about what to do with my blackberries. I don’t have to spend time baking tarts or muffins. I can simply tend to my garden and pop a few in my mouth as I go. They taste so good straight from the vine, I wonder why I ever seriously considered eating them any other way. I pick a few for Dan and leave them next to his coffee. It is my reciprocity for him chopping all the hot peppers and storing them. I send my kids out to pick a few when they seem stressed out. I put them in our morning yogurt. The blackberries have been feeding us all month, one by one. We cherish them like offerings. They taste like love. …
Jealousy is not the only monster I have to watch out for. I sometimes am visited by an insatiable desire for more. I want to read all the books, subscribe to all the Substacks, grow all the things, bake all the desserts. It is never going to be enough. Somewhere in my learning I have been taught that more is better. More food, more money, more exercise, more subscribers, more likes. This desire for more isn’t just my problem. It is a cultural problem, and it has caused us to make a mess of things. It will destroy us if we don’t stop and pause and say no more. The earth gives us so much abundance, but we have to be more responsible caretakers of the gifts we have been given.”
Gardening is not my art form but it’s definitely an art form. People express themselves creatively through it in myriad ways and I love learning from them. And we can learn a lot about the big pictures issues and challenges in life by tackling the lower stakes challenges in our art/craft/hobby. Another example …
From Project Bloom by of :
“I was sad to notice it doesn’t rain actually inside my greenhouse this week. Lots of my seedlings which had gained strength and were waiting for the perfect planting moment didn’t get it or any water as we got busy and embraced rainy day after rainy day.
A lesson perhaps in not planting or taking on so much in life or here at home.”
of wrote Overcoming Head Chatter
which is thoughts inspired by his reading of W. Timothy Gallway/s book “The Inner Game of Tennis: The Ultimate Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance,” saying:
“Welcome to the world of “head chatter,” the constant stream of thoughts and distractions in your mind that can put a kibosh on your work productivity and momentum. Unresolved, these thoughts can result in difficulty focusing, increased stress, and a reduced ability to complete tasks efficiently. …
Early in this groundbreaking read, Gallwey introduces the concept of "Self-1" which he defines as the critical, judgmental yapping inner voice that often whacks away at our performance. He contrasts this with what he calls "Self-2," which he says represents one's natural abilities, instincts, and potential. It is in this latter state, according to Gallwey, that we are able to evoke a natural flow and cadence to whatever it is we’re doing,. When we are able to dip into this state, our desired outcomes seem to occur effortlessly.”
This is a reframing of several core ideas from various aspects of psychology, and I always like a good reframe. Tennis - and sports in general - make a terrible analogy for me personally but for some people it’s exactly the right lens. We often come to better self-understanding through the lens of our hobbies/arts/crafts. I speak about this some in my podcast interview about how crochet taught me gentleness with myself and the ability to make mistakes in life without beating myself up:
How Crochet Taught Me Gentleness With Myself
“I particularly loved Kathryn's focus on her relationship with craft being something that is constantly evolving, and her celebration of every part of the process.”
A few things that I immediately think of when reading the post:
Freud’s ego, id, superego distinctions
Various therapeutic approaches to quieting the inner critic (ACT, CBT, parts work)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura’s writings on Flow State
But mostly what I think about is how common a ruminating mind is, and how very damaging it can get when it gets out of control, as I’ve personally experienced in my worst states of depression. Sometimes creating art/writing/music can be a terrific way to channel those thoughts so that they stop just circling in your head. Sometimes those thoughts can prevent you from creating art/writing/music because they tear you down too much. I haven’t figured out why sometimes it’s the first and sometimes the second for me or anyone else, but I’m continuing to explore it.
RELATED: From Evolution Shows You The Way by
“Full recovery from mental illness will take understanding how my brain works, learning to experience my thoughts, allowing my emotions, and directing my behaviors toward the pursuit of goals. Psychiatric diagnoses supposedly demarcate where our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors become pathological, meaning abnormal and/or a problem.
But what is a thought? …
For someone whose thoughts seem to be out of control—typically racing and running contrary to each other and to reality—the mind can be a terrible place. It’s ragged and harrowing. Relentless. Fragments of thoughts spin out, colliding into other thought fragments, making us feel cracked and splintering. Other times, thoughts can be unrelenting—fully-formed worries or obsessions—coming in succession again and again and again. Other times, a particularly strong thought—muscly, bullying—can take hold and not let go.”
Read the whole piece if you’re interested in the different ways we understand thoughts, emotions and behaviors. And it provides a lens where mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and psychosis aren’t pathological but a perfectly reasonable evolutionary response.
RELATED: From Beneath the Waves by of :
“The buzzing in my mind got louder and all I could hear was the noise on the lake, the noise in my head, the constant whir I had hoped to escape on an otherwise glorious morning. I was irritated and agitated and anything but calm. …
The peacefulness was here. It is always here if I can trust enough to settle. The peacefulness is here when I can let go of trying to make this moment something other than it is, trying to make it the way I think it could be. If I can let go of trying.
Down beneath the waves of life in that place my mind can’t comprehend lies the universal heartbeat. A pulse that joins every being, every creature, every molecule of that which we call “matter”. The heartbeat of the great goddess, the universal mother, reminding us we are forever in her womb and never alone. What a gift it is to hear it.”
Visit the original post to see the magnificent photos that depict what helped Karen find the peacefulness.
From When Enough is Beautifully Enough by
in which the author explains that she’s decided to pause Substack writing for now because what she’s doing during the rest of the work week is busy enough and it’s not right for her right now.
“So much communication. So much teaching. So much listening. So many words. My work life demands so much vocabulary, that I am simply wrung out of expression by the weekend. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays I want to merely exist; move, breathe and be, without further responsibility, self-checking, honing, shaping or editing. Without too much ‘thinking’ at all, actually. Without second-guessing how the recipient is going to take my handpicked mouth or finger-typed tumbles. By the end of the working week, I am utterly, unequivocably, wordily exhausted. …
My mission when I started this space in September 2022 was to modestly build a portfolio of work to be proud of. Maybe that is complete. Maybe there’s actually a second chapter, and I’ll be back sometime to pick up where I left off. I can’t wait to see how you’re all doing, if I do.”
It’s a great reminder that “enough” in any area of your life is going to look different than someone else’s enough and different from what your enough is at different stages of your own creative living experience.
RELATED: From Brain Dump by of :
“Lately, I've noticed a pattern in my daily routine. I've been drowning out my thoughts with constant stimuli like podcasts, music, and YouTube videos. The idea of silence has become foreign and even uncomfortable, as my mind seems to be in perpetual overdrive. Strangely, this changed one day when I caught myself about to wash the dishes while simultaneously scrolling through my phone for something to listen to. Instead, I decided to embrace the silence and just be with my thoughts. It turned out to be an unexpectedly therapeutic experience. Listening to my own mind, my emotions, and my heart felt like a reset I didn't know I needed. It's made me realize that I want to actively listen to myself more often, rather than drowning out my thoughts with external noise.”
This reminds me of a conversation in the comments that I shared in last week’s Notes roundup with
on her post On the interplay between silence and music in the creative process, in which she asked: “Do you find that making space for silence changes the way you approach your creativity?” and I answered: “I think it allows me to think more deeply which improves my writing and also generally allows for more ideas to flow. By turning off other people’s voices I can hear my own better.”NOTE: I love seeing all the connections to things people are sharing across Substack when I do these roundups. I could have included Luisa’s piece as “RELATED” to the mind ruminations mentioned in sharing Diamond-Michael Scott’s piece before it or to the “enough” of Mary Hutto Fruchter’s piece shared before that.
of Shared Her Creative Spark #3
which is filled with some inspiring art/writing prompts. In it Allegra writes:
“When you’re busy with a million things, finding time to regularly show up to your creative process is hard. But even when you do schedule the time, having energy left over to give to it when there’s so much else going on can be even harder.
It’s very easy for us to treat our creative time as a luxury, as less important than all the “real world” stuff we have to do. But I hope by now I’ve convinced you that your creative practice is vital. It’s a necessary way to understand and express yourself, an important form of self-care that keeps you able to do all that other stuff and central to that feeling of purpose that is essential for all of us.”
For me, this is a “Yes, and …” I absolutely believe in the importance and value of prioritizing our creativity because it helps to heal us. Allegra writes about how we often don’t have time or energy to create and yet how we must prioritize making that time. I find that making space to create can actually open a sense of spaciousness that makes me feel like I have more time and energy. So yes, agree with all things here …
And … when dealing with mental/physical health challenges, sometimes this feels hard to the point of impossible. When the fatigue or depression or ruminating mind or chronic pain is so bad, it might not be possible to create the way that you want to. You don’t feel like you have time or energy because you literally don’t as a result of your health taking up that time and energy. So I wanted to also add these small things that you can try to do to create spaciousness and grace for yourself when those times come:
Spend just one single minute on creativity. Doodle. Color. Your mind and body might not be able to do ten or fifteen minutes, let alone an hour, but one minute is almost always doable.
Make it easy for yourself to pick up your art. If you have to go up to an attic and dig out an easel and set it up and prepare paint … well that’s going to be a job for another day. Create baskets or boxes or shelves where you have easy access to crayons and paper or crochet hook and yarn.
Consume art that inspires you. I am coming to believe that “being creative” is not just about the things that you make but also about all of the ebbs and flows and ups and downs of what you take in and put out. Flip through a fashion magazine or art book, visit your library’s online website and request a hold on a book you want to read, listen to a piece of music that moves you.
Take ten minutes to just breathe and be. In writing, in art, in music the spaces are as important as the “art” itself. A sentence without spaces is a series of run-on letters that are hard to make sense of. We need room to breathe in every art piece and we need room to breathe as creative humans. So, if for whatever reason, you don’t have time and energy and ability to create, just take ten minutes to lie down, breathe, be present with yourself and honor that regardless of what you are “doing” you are a creative human BEING.
RELATED: From of in Good News and Gratitude #5:
“In this phase of my life, I need to move slowly and carefully with change. So Step One: I’m taking one day a week completely off income work and chores. Other than on holiday, I haven’t had a day like this in about fifteen years. I’m excited and nervous and even a bit confused about how it’s all going to play out. But I envision a lot of lying in the hammock, cuddles with Rudy whilst reading a good book, and extra long walks with Delilah and Cookie. I’m going to do my best to stay off the internet. We’ll see about that. That might be a later step!”
Visit my thoughts related to modern Sabbaths.
RELATED: From Sunday’s Gentle Pause by of :
which is an invitation for paying subscribers to join a rejuvenating Zoom call:
“But here’s the thing: it’s by taking albeit a small amount of time to pause and do something that nourishes your own wellbeing, that calms and soothes and simply makes you feel good, not only do you feel better but you’re also in a better position to deal with everything else on your plate.
The Gentle Pause is like hitting a reset button so if your day is running away from you it gives you the chance to take a breath, calm and centre yourself. And, regularly pausing helps to stop everything getting on top of you in the first place. It’s a way to put a little back into the cup you’re so busy pouring out of for everyone else.”
From Félix González-Torres by of
“Félix and Ross were together for eight years. In that time, their lives became “intertwined like the strands of a helix.” …
Félix’s response to Ross’s [HIV] diagnosis was to document, write letters, and make art. In When This You See Remember Me, former MoMA curator Robert Storr argues that “the constant reminder of sickness and impending death for Gonzalez-Torres made his art production at times a necessary and urgent calling.”
And so just as Ross was facing death, Félix’s star began its incredible rise in the art world.
Ross’s life informed many of the artist’s greatest pieces. Up until his own death, Félix repeatedly proclaimed that his art was made for an audience of one: Ross. His tremendous output during this period led to an exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York in 1995, when Félix was just 37 years old. The exhibition should have been a mid-career survey, but proved to be a retrospective.”
Go look at the art and read the whole story and see if it doesn’t touch your heart.
What I’m thinking about from this section is how grief and fear and love can all be channeled into art. The act of creating the art is therapeutic in some way that often feels magical. It gets the thoughts out of the head, it allows feelings to move through your body instead of staying stuck, it helps you understand what you’re trying to say or see … And it creates at least a small sense of immortality, a sense that you’re leaving something of yourself to others, a thing that can feel critically empowering when you’re facing loss and death.
I’m also thinking about how these uniquely personal creative expressions that are about one person’s lived experience also often being the work that has the most universal appeal. Artists create in times of trauma and war, they create work about their own experiences of widespread “isms” and illnesses and fears, they create work about how hard and magnificent it is to be a human. The experience of what it was to be a gay man with HIV in the 1980s and 1990’s is a very specific experience … the hope is that the art creates understanding and empathy in the time it’s created but we also see how it does that retroactively in exhibits and sharing of the work today. We learn, we grow, art helps.
RELATED: From When Fear Speaks by of
When fear speaks,
hold it.
touch it.
feel it.
and release it.
You don’t have to walk away and allow fear to have the final say.
That’s a portion of the piece. Go read the whole thing. <3
shared Loneliness and the Artistic Expression of Sonia Delaunay
“One of Delaunay's most notable contributions to art was her exploration of colour theory and its impact on human emotions. She believed that colors had the power to evoke different feelings and sensations, and she used this understanding to create visually striking compositions that spoke to the viewer's emotions. In the context of loneliness, Delaunay's use of colors such as cool blues and deep purples can be seen as an attempt to translate the isolating experience of loneliness onto the canvas. …
In addition to her use of colour and geometry, Delaunay's work often incorporated elements of movement and rhythm. Her interest in textiles and fashion design led her to create innovative clothing designs that embodied a sense of movement and energy. This element of movement within her work can be interpreted as a reflection of the restlessness and longing that often accompany feelings of loneliness.”
Many people find abstract art inaccessible or difficult to understand. I think this has to do with trying to put words to something that’s best understood through color and line. I’m guilty of this myself again and again, reading about a piece in order to understand it rather than trusting my own visceral reaction to viewing the work. There’s a lot of richness to color theory, but whether or not you know it, you may intuitively understand that the blues and purples in Delauney’s work speak to loneliness. You may actually feel lonely when experiencing that work yourself.
I love how Lonely Robot Theme shares two different sides of loneliness presented in her work: isolation and restlessness. Our mental health experiences are nuanced, complex, even sometimes contradictory to one another and art can express all of that at different times in different ways.
Finally, this:
“Her work serves as a testament to the power of art to communicate universal emotions and provide solace to those who may be experiencing loneliness themselves.”
This speaks even more directly to how viewing/experiencing/consuming other people’s art can provide connection and healing whether or not you consider yourself an artist.
of shared Agatha Christie: A is for Ashfield…
which is a biography of the writer. It was interesting to learn some of her early history including:
“Unusually, even for the late Victorian period, she was educated at home by her parents. Clara, though, did not believe that young children should learn to read and did not want her daughter to be taught until she was at least eight. Agatha, who loved the stories that were read to her by her parents and her nurse, taught herself instead.”
We also learn that she had a very happy childhood and some other great things going for her but that she also had potentially-traumatic experiences including the death of her father when she was 11 years old after a stressful period of financial instability in the family.
“In 1905, aged fifteen and excelling in music, she travelled to Paris and attended a selection of finishing schools that focused on the subject. At this time, Agatha had dreams of becoming a singer, but, despite her passion, was advised by her teachers that she lacked the stage presence required to make it her profession.”
Following that she wrote her first manuscript which was promptly rejected. And soon came the global stressors of a world war. And yet, she kept creating, becoming the prolific and famous author we know about today.
Her story intrigues me because of her persistence in learning and creating, even in the face of challenges. I go back to the emphasis on her very happy childhood, which offers such a protective factor for humans in their psychological wellbeing. But everyone has their struggles in life. A 2022 article by Joe Middleton in Independent shares how in 1926, Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared for a few days and it’s now believed that she went into a fugue state. Middleton quotes:
“Worsley told BBC History magazine: “By 1926 Agatha was a successful novelist, and she was under a lot of pressure to keep producing books. But her mother died that year, and she went into an episode of what today would be described as a depression.”
As I often say, I believe that we are all creatives with mental health experiences. I believe that we are on spectrums of both of these things and they interact in different ways over time. Agatha seems to have had a lot of resources and protective factors that allowed her creativity to thrive most of the time … but during this period of grief/stress/whatever her mental health took center stage.
SHORT SHARES: On Writing
This week’s short shares are all on writing. Next week, on Wednesday, I’ll be launching my brand-new weekly digest of writing about writing. It will be similar to what you see here with that specific focus, aimed at helping inform, educate, inspire and empower other writers through the words of all of the smart writers here on Substack. That one is for paying subscribers only so switch to a paid subscription now if that sounds appealing.
From of Eleanor’s Substack in Welcome Home:
“And so it begins. The voice in my head that gets me up at five in the morning and tells me to go and write. That voice has caused a lot of work to be done, many words on the page, short stories, whole novels, four of them, and all this. I’ve been looking back through the memoir and this diary, so much talking, so many stories and still they keep coming, that voice still finding a reason to send me to the kitchen table while the rest of the world sleeps.”
From Inspiration Isn’t Enough by of
“There are several problems with the ‘waiting game’ approach. First, the obvious: waiting for a spark to be lit is not writing. And what if no spark comes? What happens then to the drive and motivation necessary to face the page, and moreover, to sustain a fulfilling writing practice? While inspiration can sometimes linger, it’s rare for it to stick around for the entire duration of even a single, short project.
Writing and sharing daily in the way I did for the month-long 200 words-a-day challenge provided absolute proof to me that the waiting game gets us nowhere. Showing up, ready to write, no matter what, does.”
From the Intro to Just Write, The Newsletter of by
“This project is a personal challenge to write regularly. These newsletters will wrap up the writing ‘week’ that was. It is a gentle encouragement to me to celebrate the words I have wrestled into shape since I last wrote one of these round-ups.”
From It Doesn’t Have to Be Your Best by of :
“My routine is to publish something Sunday at 8am. The truth is, these pieces are not the absolute best that I am capable of.
If I had weeks and months to expertly craft them, polish them and make them shine like gem stones, they could be better. But my weekly deadline compels me to press publish and put out flawed words. Typos, clunky sentences and all.
And do you know what? People still connect with what I’m writing. How awesome is that!? I am proud of my writing here.”
I don’t usually comment on short shares but I have to interject here that this and so much of what I read this week made me think, yet again, of my favorite Martha Graham quote:
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”
Re-reading this, writing it down, sharing it with others has been an important part of my own creative journey as it relates to mental health. The symptoms of depression, low self-esteem, a sense of pointlessness can lead me to times when I don’t believe in my work and don’t think it reaches people and don’t think it matters and don’t think it’s good. And I re-read this quote and remind myself, “it is not your business to determine how good it is.” And I unclench my jaw and say thanks but no thanks for the comments to my inner critic and I get back to the work. In the face of rejections, rudeness, and financial instability, I try to have faith that my words reach the people meant to find them in the time meant for it to happen. I know that other people’s words have done that for me, and they will never know it, so I also know it’s true that mine have done the same.
RELATED: this week by of whose piece Know yourself. Know your worth touched many people:
“Social media and its algorithms can trick us into thinking that our art, writing, craft, and creativity suck if we aren't getting validation from likes, follows, and comments. And if we start thinking, "My art sucks," we can become distracted and drained by something I call performative posting (producing and sharing and hoping something sticks) and negative self-talk (no one cares, no one likes me, my writing sucks, I'm not pretty enough, etc.) If we allow social media to have that type of power over us and what we're making, we are doing ourselves, our "audience," and our craft a disservice.”
From Let Me Eat Cake by of :
“And then I began here. Many secrets inside the castle have risen up, rebelled and shed the armor. The Kate Chronicles is the first piece of naked truth I’ve allowed myself to indulge in. These pieces are my battle cry. Which is why it surprised me so very much to see that this journaling is working for me. I have witnessed the changes in who I’ve become by lowering the gate enough to peek at what I’ve been hiding from.”
From Breakfast Creativity by of :
For people who enjoy seeing the behind-the-scenes of artists’ and writers’ supplies and creative spaces.
“The black books on the right are my sketchbooks and the patterned book in the middle is my notebook. Both books have the kind of paper that accepts fountain pen ink. The paper in the sketchbooks also accepts gouache, watercolors, color pencils and all sorts of ink. To the left, in the photo above, are my glorious fountain pens! The flat black thing on the far left of the pens is a book weight which is used to hold my books open. I also use clips sometimes to hold books open.
FINALLY, A REMINDER which comes from :
“September is important as it relates to mental health. World Suicide Prevention Day and National Suicide Prevention Week mean that people across America and around the planet will be invited into a conversation about saving lives and staying alive. It’s not limited to a single week, with September as a whole being Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.”
PLEASE HELP ME MEET MY GOAL:
My goal is to find 1000 people who are interested in subscribing to this work at a rate of $100 per year. This shows the world that we as creatives believe artists and writers can and should earn six figures. I practice artistic tithing, meaning that at least 10% of my income automatically goes to support other artists, writers, makers, creatives, performers, etc. So if I meet my goal, we keep at least $10000 of that right in the creative community. I also make every effort to continuously encourage, support, share and promote the work of others.
$100 per year feels like a lot. But it works out to less than $2 per week.
If this is something that you believe in, I really need the support of paid subscriptions to be able to keep doing this work that I’m deeply committed to. In fact, I believe in this work so much that I’ve self-funded a year of full-time work here using a business loan. If I don’t reach the above goal by Summer 2024, I may have to revisit things.
See benefits for paid subscribers here. On a really tight budget? Learn about my Pay What You Can option here.
I think it's pretty cool that I've gotten to know some of these folks too. We have a nice little supportive community here.
I really warm to the link between art and mental health. I think that they are linked and by engaging in art mental health improves. As a teacher I can see this time and again by using art to defuse and reconcile. 🤩 Thanks for bringing us this aceness.