How does viewing/consuming art help/heal individuals and communities?
37 excerpts on the power of reading books, watching films, listening to music, playing games, and viewing visual art
We talk a lot about how creating art can be healing. However, we are also all “consumers” of art, taking in the creativity of others, and this, too, can be healing. Today I have a roundup for you of thoughts that touch on a response to the question:
How does viewing/consuming art help/heal individuals and communities?
A few of these come from interviews that I did previously. Most come from previous “Link Love” roundups where I collected quotes and excerpts from various Substackers. Visit them for all of their original writing, knowing that these excerpts are specific to my lens of answering the question about how taking in other people’s creativity is healing.
June (on reading as a creative activity):
From an interview with
:“That’s interesting too. I haven’t really thought about it like that, but I can see what you mean. I think we all create our own version of the world in the pages, don’t we? Visualise the characters, make them ours? I know I dislike it when I see a dramatization of a book I’ve read and the characters don’t look the way I imagine them, I feel short-changed – the adapter’s creativity is not the same as mine. So yes, when we’re reading fiction of any genre we’re re-creating that world and those people for ourselves. Non-fiction is very different – I think that feeds our creativity all the time, it’s all research and resource for something we might put on a page later on. Whatever I’m reading, I’m learning and tucking things away that I might use later. I annotate or use a notebook and note down phrases, or sentences, or ideas that I can reinterpret in my own writing. So, actually yes – I think reading is a creative activity! It’s a fundamental building block for writing.”
on music and gaming ..
“As a fan, I would obsess over bands that I loved. In joyful moments, music would give me a euphoric high. In times of heartbreak or sadness, it would console me and let me start again. Music is in my blood. Even when I first turned to photography, I began by making photos at music shows. My love for music has driven me creatively, my whole life.”
RELATED: Music as a Moment for Mental Relaxation and Feeling Your Feelings
“I am not a gamer, however, I made a pandemic purchase of a PlayStation with the games Spider-Man, FIFA 20, and Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding. The latter is a remarkable journey that I often take when I need some time to myself, or to disconnect from my work.
In the game, your character is a porter in a world locked down, traversing a landscape, delivering packages and avoiding otherworldly entities called BTs. The gameplay is often meditative as you travel from origin to destination. It is a stunning, magnificent, and at times devastating treatise on death, grief, human connection, and hope. I can sincerely say it has become one of my favourite pieces of art. Period.”
From on Bruce Springsteen:
It may surprise people to learn that, with the exception of my husband, the person who has helped my mental health more than anyone else is Bruce Springsteen. I discovered his music when I was in high school and have been a huge fan ever since. The evenings I’ve spent seeing Bruce and the E Street Band perform live have been the best nights of my life. Nothing else comes close to those experiences of pure joy, and I would go to many more concerts during their current tour if I could afford to. I watch a Bruce concert DVD or YouTube video almost every day.
Bruce lives with depression, too. In his Born to Run autobiography, he acknowledges that. During interviews, he openly discusses his history of depression and how therapy and medication have helped him. So he has a positive effect on my mental health in that way, too. He’s also a great role model because he is still doing what he loves at age 73 and has for most of his life. He refused to give up on his dream and get a “real” job when he was younger and performed in small venues that didn’t pay enough to cover his basic living expenses. Now he uses his wealth and fame to help others. In addition to his own charitable giving, he encourages fans at every concert to support their local food bank by donating to its representatives at the venue, located near the food and merchandise vendors.
Sue Clancy of A.M. Sketching shared Reading to Cats
“Recently my friend Kate Morgan Reade took a copy of my book Numpurrs to a cat shelter where readers are participating in Cat Tales - Kids Reading to Cats at the Caring for Cats shelter in North St. Paul, MN.”
You must go see the photos of children reading to cats. I have seen this program regularly for dogs. One big reason behind it is that children who may be afraid to read aloud because they have difficulty with reading or are afraid of being bullied or whatever read instead to dogs who are kind, compassionate listeners. I’d never seen it with cats before. Love this.
A reading life by Petya K. Grady had a post called Why I don’t love bookclubs
“Like every book lover in the world, I have spent a fair share of life belonging to various bookclubs. They always hold so much promise and, for me, inevitably end in disappointment. I expect good book selections, deep reading, real learning, intellectual stimulation. What I get is a book list that is all over the place, superficial conversation, and a sense of underwhelm. Good times are had but the mind is at rest.”
I’m a voracious book reader but have never actually been part of a book club for various reasons. I actually just joined my first book club, although I haven’t been to a meeting yet, because it’s specifically about books that are set in San Francisco which is a niche passion of mine and that’s something I’m keen to share with others. We’ll see.
Petya’s piece goes on to discuss some of the virtual book clubs that are forming here on Substack and why they feel more aligned.
Jane Ratcliffe of Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe shared a wonderful interview with Dr Sharon Blackie
which has a section I love about the power of reading:
“I have a half shelf full of books which constitute my go-to medicine in times of trouble. I reread all of them while I was undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma, during the first half of 2021. They’re all mythic fiction – but that isn’t because I want escapism. They fire up my imagination and remind me of all the magic in the world.”
Katy Hessel of the The Great Women Artists shared reflections on Frida Kahlo’s The Broken Column
There’s so much richness in this article and lots to say or share about the work itself, but here’s the part I noticed most:
“Whenever I witness a painting by Kahlo I’m always amazed, and surprised – by how small they are because of how much power they omit. They feel like relics or jewels, and companions too. Although she painted herself alone, somehow, she makes us feel less alone. Full of emotion – it’s like she’s telling us that, whatever we might be feeling, she too has been through it before.”
Experiencing the art of others can be a powerful way to feel connected to the greater human experience, reducing feelings of isolation and loneliness and aloneness. Living with mental health conditions can be particularly alienating and seeing work that reminds us that we are not alone can make it so much more bearable.
Sal Randolph of The Uses of Art shared Ways of Seeing: Blue
“I love the way that books infuse your daily life with their moods and modes. In the last few days I’ve been re-read Maggie Nelson’s beautiful short book of propositions: Bluets. One of the effects of the book is to turn up the volume on all the blues around me. My life has been blue-tinted.”
What we choose to “consume” shapes the world around us. Sal goes on to share some great stuff from the book and then some creative exercise suggestions inspired by this with “the initiating impulse is to expand our possibilities for engaging with works of art and deepening attention.” BEAUTIFUL.
Vanja Vukelic of Multilayered wrote The Land That Holds Us
Which is about something I’ve seen many people writing about recently - the power of land itself to hold memories over years, decades, centuries. While this may seem at first glance to differ from what I usually share here, I really think that nature itself is an art form. I don’t know who created it but it’s amazing and inspiring and if earth and land and nature aren’t art then what is really? So I’m touched by this. Vanja writes:
“The land, sacred in her essence, isn't something external, even though it may seem that way. She and all her beings are our kin. This understanding has evolved over years of walking, meditating, and creating in my homeland and various lands and environments.
In the simplest terms, I've discovered that a relationship unfolds on every piece of land we traverse, visit, or make our home on. There's an inherent communication continually transpiring.” …
“The land is our power, our healer, our friend. She grounds and anchors us in community and shared responsibility. She teaches resilience, holding and releasing our grief, and cultivating empathy. We belong to the land, and we are the land, and her wisdom and power are embodied within us all. In walking and working with the land, we remember the medicine of our hearts; we recognize that we belong with each other no matter where in the world we are.”
Vanja also shares with us a Sacred Stone Ritual for Holding and Releasing Grief in Nature which you can find in the original post.
Jennifer M Koskinen of Good Footprints shared (The Other) Best Reads of 2023
and the intro might be my very favorite thing I’ve read about why books/writing are so powerful:
“I crawled through a week-long blizzard during polar winter near the Arctic Circle. I languished in a submarine, swam above the Mariana Trench and flung myself near the speed of light — more than once — past the Kuiper Belt. I’ve been to art school, run with reindeer and flown with dragons. I was sentenced to death for witchcraft, led a climate revolution, hypothesized about the aliveness of a paradoxical cat, and fought greedy oil conglomerates. I’ve dodged bullets in war zones, midnight-brainstormed with Obama, and mind-melded with a pensive, gender non-binary mountain lion living in the hills of LA.
I’ve revisited the past, glimpsed — and changed — the future, mopped (real) rivers of tears from my face, experienced love, gutting loss, fiery lust, agonizing pain and simple joy of humanity through other people’s eyes and hearts, all while deepening compassion and adding to my range of perspective.
ALL OF THIS from looking at the same small set of characters in different arrangements on paper. HOW IS THAT NOT MAGIC?!”
Cams Campbell of Taking Personal Inventory shared Creative People Will Find a Way:
I also read other people's work because it helps me to connect, not only with them and the source of all their power, but because it challenges me, it informs me, it amuses me. It's that connection to other people that I'm really after.”
Mary Hutto Fruchter of Mary’s Pocketful of Prose 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.”
Isabelle Elena of Mulching 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.”
Farrah @Substack of Things Worth Knowing with Farrah Storr 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.
From The Immortal Jellyfish & Intuition by Suleika Jaouad of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad
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 allthe 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!
Andrea Bass of Literary Merit shared ten authors she wants to read this year
“I own more books than I have room for, yet I browse the Libby app every Tuesday to borrow new releases for my Kindle. I try to keep up with new titles that spark my curiosity, but I'm curious about many more books than I have time to read. Plus, focusing so much on new stuff leaves me less time to read backlist titles. I tell you all this because there are books and authors I've wanted to explore for years, but I just haven't done it yet thanks to the tidal wave of books at my disposal every waking second.
I started my new book journal for 2024, and one of the sections I included is a list naming the writers whose work I want to read this year. I want to share my list and encourage you to create one of your own. I've read some of these authors before, and I'm unfamiliar with others, only aware of their stellar reputations. My list isn't about what I think I need to read; it's full of writers I want to read.”
I think this highlights several key things related to the power of experiencing art (in this case, specifically, books …)
There’s something beautiful about the inspiration process that comes with just adding new titles to your life, whether or not you read them all … I regularly add books to my “for later” shelf on my library’s website and while I do intend to read them there’s actually something just about the ritual of seeing what’s being published that I love.
And yet, if we focus entirely on consuming new media of any kind, then we miss out on the richness of the inspiration we are truly really seeking, so it’s important to go back and dig deeper as well. For Andrea, it’s the list … for me, it’s usually about picking a specific topic or keyword and then digging deep into that. I do this regularly for certain topics (San Francisco, for example) and for a focused period of time for others (like my word of the year).
When considering where to put your energy in terms of experiencing art, ask yourself if it’s what you really want to explore or if you have this feeling you just “should”.
Private Libraries as Bibliophilic Paradise by Diamond-Michael Scott of Great Books + Great Minds
“In my own tranquil library, a fusion of both physical and digital realms, I find my sanctuary. The books, the music, and the enduring essence of my father merge into a tapestry rich with inspiration and peace.
This library is not just an assemblage of texts; it is a living homage to the unyielding power of knowledge, a nod to history, and a guiding light for the future. It is in this sacred space that I lose myself, only to find myself anew.”
Adam Smyth of TEXT! wrote about Reading several things at once
“We may think of reading as our solitary immersement in a single book, but that’s not really what happens. We read while we are doing other things – our eye tracking through Spare by Prince Harry or Marcel Proust’s Finding Time Again (taste vary), but our mind all the time turning over the sound of traffic outside, the turning hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen, the list of things you haven’t yet done, the thing your friend said yesterday. And while we might imagine ‘good’ reading as the silencing of these other voices, in reality reading is always about the entangling of the book in front of us with all the other things going on in our head. Reading is always about many texts at the same time; reading is always plural and, in that sense, necessarily unfocused and dispersed.”
This is definitely true for me - what I’m reading informs what I’m experiencing and vice versa, ties into what I’m taking in and putting out in conversation and creativity. Adam goes on to share an experience of reading two texts at the same time:
“The effect of reading them together meant they bled into each other: the boundaries of the two texts were permeable.” …
“To mash up the sentences like this looks startling, but it captures what was happening in my head as I toggled between the two, and in fact what always happens when we read.”
radicaledward of Wolf shared The Boy and The Heron
which is a review/overview of Miyazaki’s piece that also incorporates his own experiences as he watches and I was mesmerized by this description of how experiencing someone else’s art can be so powerful for us:
“I sat there dazzled, enraptured, the world sliding around and through me, wholly capturing me, captivating me, howling through me, and I gave into that world, that Play, and allowed myself to become a thrumming engine along with all the palpitating hearts thrumming in the chests around me, we all building this world together, bathed in Miyazaki’s hand drawn imagery, and I was struck dumb when Mahito tried to free his aunt, his new mother, from the cage of the birthing room where those paper birds recalled both Spirited Away but most of all the moment in Princess Mononoke when San, the wolf princess, tries to free Lord Okkoto, the blind boar god, from the curse enflaming him and his people towards suicide, towards a self-inflicted genocide, and I gasped, suddenly alone in that packed theatre, elbow to elbow with my cowriter, and the hooks within me, that I hadn’t noticed, all pulled at once when Mahito’s mother says goodbye, when his great-granduncle’s tower comes tumbling down, when his father tried to free him, his sword slashing through a maelstrom of enlarged and sentient parakeets, and I lost track of time, of myself, and I tumbled through time, through years, through the versions of me, of ydde, who sat and watched these many Ghibli movies on various beatup couches, on dirty carpets, in dark theatres, sitting at my desk where I wrote a column of every Studio Ghibli movie, but most of all to that very first time, to the first time I ever encountered one of these wonderful, terrifying, beautiful, worldending, lifechanging movies that led me through decades of influence, a decade of desolation, and I was again ten years old, my mouth agape, agapē—”
Cheryl A. Ossola of Italicus: a writer's life in Italy shared Black Space and Equilibrium:
“What’s the point of looking at art? Is it to admire beauty or marvel at technique? Is it to understand better the times the artist lived in, or something of their environments? In “realistic” paintings or sketches we see a particular landscape, or a typical Renaissance bedroom, or the defensive existence of a medieval town—all glimpses into a time machine made of pigment and form, subject and perspective, canvas and board. Nothing wrong with any of that. I’m guilty of seeking beauty, of preferring art that matches my aesthetic taste—Botticelli! Gentileschi! Bonnard! Sargent! Van Gogh!—not that it’s a sin to indulge in what gives me that burst of dopamine. Pleasure comes not just from that dopamine jolt but also from our emotional responses to certain images, colors, compositions, juxtapositions. Or we might get teary simply because an artist does something we think is impossible for ourselves. Even when we’re being analytical or historical minded, art can sneak in and elevate us, transport us out of our safe little worlds. But often that happens despite ourselves.
What if we push beyond our preferences or defaults? What happens then? And how do we manage to let go of our boundaries? How do we look at art, and how does the how affect our artistic preferences?”
Yes, what if?
Memoir Land’s Monday Memoir Roundup led me to How a Musical Adaptation of Tolstoy Helped Us Get Through the Pandemic by Theodore Wheeler on Literary Hub
which is about how experiencing art together - specifically music in the car as a family - leads to so many terrific connections. And then how seeing a musical all together with others broadens that out to a sense of connection with the larger world:
“Sitting in the audience I started to feel the power of connecting from the stage. I felt like I was part of the show, not a detached observer. This was all done on purpose, of course. That’s what musicals do so well. They abound with connection points. Familiar stories. Bawdy jokes. Songs that beg to be sung along with in the car. They are meant to be experienced collectively.
I’m still not sure I like musicals, honestly. But I like what they do. I am grateful for what they have done for me. Two years earlier we had threatened to wither away before we could again experience something like this–but The Great Comet helped us hang on.”
Brittney Rigby of Brittney Rigby shared in the intro to Gift Guide Pt 2, Books:
“A book is a thoughtful, precious gift - a window into another world, a window into the mind of the person who’s gifted it. When gifting a book you’ve read yourself, you’re saying: here’s a little piece of me that I want to become a little piece of you. When gifting a book you haven’t read but want to read, you’re saying: here’s a universe we can explore together. When gifting a book you haven’t read but matches the other person, you’re saying: I know you.”
I always gifted books to my dad. I’m sad that he’s not here this year to do that for.
Farrah Storr in an interview with Jane Ratcliffe of Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe shared:
“The books that lift me are always about gardening. They take me out of my head and into the land and for me that’s the best way to deal with anything. Vita Sackville West, one time lover of Virginia Woolf and the woman behind the world famous garden Sissinghurst (which is down the road from where I live) has some excellent collections of gardening books. They sit on my bedside table and I dip in and out of them as the mood takes me.”
I remember that my mother had this huge collection of gardening books (she keeps everything so she probably still has them) including a series, the kind that comes in the mail periodically until you have a whole set, a thing that I don’t think happens now but did happen in the 80’s. I don’t remember her ever gardening but sometimes taking in art in this way satisfies something inside us just as deeply.
Sarah Harkness wrote a piece for The Books That Made Us by M. E. Rothwell about Possession by A.S. Byatt
which is a beautiful tribute to the recently-passed author and a celebration of how a book can be a friend time and time again throughout the years
“Above all, Possession greets me as an old friend, and it reminds me of difficult times in my life, but each time I return to it I find it says something profound and new about the richness of the written word, and about the sheer joy of reading, and how a great writer can inspire one to read, and read more, and to read again, and again.”
Do you re-read books? We’ve discussed this a few times here but I’m always interested in everyone’s answers. If you do, do you have special ones that are friends throughout the years?
Samantha Clark of The Life Boat wrote Art that holds time as a vase holds water:
about viewing a variety of different museum art and when writing about one piece shared:
“Part of what drew me to this work is the sheer density of time it holds, the thousands and thousands of hours of painstaking work contained in its making. Somehow that gives this work a kind of presence. It's as if it inhabits time differently and invites us to do the same.
Art can hold time, slow time down, allowing a moment to dilate with meaning and connections, and as we experience this we come to realise that each single moment doesn't just have duration, it also has the potential for depth, for amplitude, for layers and ramifications.”
She discusses Slow Art, which I love because I’ve written and thought a lot about Slow Yarn/ Slow Craft. What I love about this particular passage is that it puts a new twist on it for me, because I always think about the slowness in the making of art, but there can also be a slowness in the viewing of art.
Samantha Rose McRae of I Have Thoughts. shared The Greatest Gift I Ever Received
and although she is discussing travel here, I think we also often have this when we experience the world through art as well:
“To see the way another person lives, what their life is like on the inside- walking the same streets, eating the same food, speaking the same language- is an expression of the love of God for me. Not only observing, but asking to understand because understanding brings compassion, love. Understanding builds bridges and illuminates shared experience. Seeing the different ways the Earth was built; watching the colors the sun reflects on mountains in the west, then mountains in the east; feeling the presence of the people of the land; it all reveals something new we didn’t know before and maybe we are even a little better for it.”
Helen Redfern of THE ANXIOUS WRITER 🌿 By Helen Redfern asked What Are Your Thoughts on BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert
and shared:
“Big Magic is seen as the wonder-book for the creative and has been raved about since its publication in 2015.
I’ve had my copy for several years but struggled to read it for a while. The problem was it seemed to make so much sense, I felt so seen that a huge wave of overwhelm would overcome me as I read and my heart would race. Looking back I think this was because there was so much noise in my head I just couldn’t cope with the possibilities this book could open up for me.”
And while this wasn’t true for me with that book, which I loved and devoured quickly and then quickly a second time, I can relate to the feeling of when a piece of art or writing is so powerful that you aren’t ready for it at a given time and have to pause and not take it in but then return to it when the time is right.
June Girvin of June's Writing wrote a beautiful piece called Joni and me
which celebrates the life and art and personal impact of Joni Mitchell:
“She has never faded for me over the years, was always ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’ risking everything for love, and causing me to remember my own past times with a wry smile and a bucket-load of nostalgia. When I learned about her aneurysm, it felt as close as a family member. It has been thrilling to see her singing again, unmistakably Joni, and with Brandi Carlile cheerleading. Her face is still beautiful. Her poetry full of the meaning you want to take from it. Her painting free and flowing. I make no apology for this fan-girl hymn to her genius, for me she is unsurpassed.”
There are singers/writers/artists who speak to us at a certain time in our lives and it’s so poignant that it stays with us forever and they become our lifelong friends, family members, inspirations. Though I love her music, I don’t think of Joni Mitchell as one of those for me … and yet in June’s piece as she lists a series of lines from different pieces that are forever with her, I paused at “Coyote’ being a ‘prisoner of the white lines on the freeway‘ and I was immediately transported back to my twenties, listening to the album on a yellow self-leveling record player, having gotten it from a favorite used bookstore. I remember the house, the way that I felt so often during that stage of life, my dad who gave me the record player … There are some artists who reach so many of us that when another person shares a story about them, we remember being there too.
Elissa Altman of Poor Man's Feast shared a breakfast conversation with Maggie Smith
and said in the intro to that:
“When Good Bones was published in 2016, many of us were living in an unthinkable world of sorrow so deep and visceral that it was ineffable. And this is the problem with sorrow: it knows no words that are strong enough. I am reminded of Toni Morrison telling Elissa Schappell in a Paris Review interview that she thought the problem with writing about sex is that it isn’t sexy enough. Sometimes, words won’t do. But then: the question — during times of violence, emotional disarray, life change, trauma — of what do we tell the children looms large. How to be a sense-maker when the world is defying sense, logic, reason. How do we put one foot in front of the other. How do we do it. A least a million readers asked themselves this same question, and found solace in Maggie’s words.”
This describes how we often turn to the words or music or art of others to feel less alone in the wake of collective trauma or universally-experienced challenges or just hard times.
From A Comedy, Tonight by Liz Gumbinner in I’m Walking Here
During the pandemic, one of the things I missed the most was going to see live theater, comedy, music. I don’t even go all that often really but I go enough that not being able to go felt sad. So I loved this:
“Two hours in a Broadway theater sounded downright magical, in fact.
There were no tourists then; they were still scared to come into the city. And so 1100 or so New Yorkers, eager to support our hometown, dressed up just a bit and sat together for two hours, letting down our guards, withholding judgment or pretentious theater criticism of any kind and just…laughed.
Or more specifically, we let ourselves laugh.
We laughed so hard it brought those tears you try to pass off as allergies and I can’t properly describe to you just how much catharsis occurred in the Eugene O’Neil Theater that night.
Because what is that story, if not a group of friends at their darkest moments managing to bond together in support and find a path to a better future.
When the curtain closed and 1100 of us jumped to our feet to cheer the cast, you couldn’t miss the red eyes above the smiles, the crumpled Kleenex balls hidden in tight fists, the hands squeezing other hands, remembering that it would be possible—likely even—to feel joy again.
I will say it forever: The world needs art.
And evidently my DNA contains the understanding that when the world is at its most dire and terrible, we need humor too.”
As an aside, I’ve started watching the second season of The Dark Side of Comedy. I love this series, although there’s a lot of sadness there, about comics and the difficulties in their lives, often depression and addiction but sometimes other issues as well. It’s insightful.
Anna Fusco of Unsupervised shared A Year of Magical Griefwalking
With insights into what Unsupervised has been for her, as a part of her larger life, up until now and what it might be becoming. Within this, she touches upon something that feels important about the challenge of sharing through art and writing about the people beyond ourselves in our communities:
“If you’ve been reading Unsupervised from the beginning, you know that my interpretation of what’s happened coalesces here; these letters are my story. Often I write about things as they unfold, as has been the case this year with the topic of my mother or my relationship with T. When only one other person is implicated in my narrative, it’s simpler. I may not give the person poetic justice, but I only have to answer to them if I screw up.
I’ve been asked by this online community to write more about the real life community I inhabit. I’ve moved slowly to heed the requests, precisely because community isn’t just about me. What will happen if I give meaning to something larger? Before now, it also seemed premature to glean from my experience without having witnessed four seasons. I could tell you about the river, or I could just get in.”
In my experience, if you feel deeply moved to share a story, then you will find a way to share it, even if it involves other people that you care about who might not want that story shared. But that doesn’t mean that you always have to share those stories or the whole stories … you can share some or part or none or all and you can share from your own perspective and acknowledge the limitations of that or try to incorporate other perspectives or write in fiction or create in abstracts … there are many ways to do this and it’s something we all figure out for ourselves as we go.
From Month 03 by Susannah Conway of The Unraveled Heart :
“The reading flurry continued throughout October. My cat has been sick — upper respiratory issues on top of her cancer — and I took refuge in fiction to try to soothe my anxiety. I haven’t watched the news in years for mental health protection but I’m still very much plugged into our online world and see the horrors that get shared so fast (and rightly so). …
It’s so easy to turn away, sometimes necessary too when you’re fighting fires in your own house, but I’m no longer turning so far that I cannot see. Fiction is helping me stay attached to the ground while looking after the most important member of my household, but slowly, mindfully, I’m educating myself about the real world.”
I love this awareness that fiction - or whatever form of consuming art does it for you - can providing grounding and centering and solace that allows you the strength to deal with the challenges of the world.
Helen Conway of Encore by Helen Conway on Rothko and the power of the word “and”:
“The blocks of colour he presents are hauntingly beautiful because of what is on top as well as what is below. There are ghost marks and phantom clouds, apparitions, coverings and revelations. The layers shimmer and dance, adding, subtracting, morphing, connecting, parting. It is a process of addition, of combination, the mingling of differences to form a complex whole. The invitation to penetrate is not a suggestion we should go backwards to what was but an invitation to appreciate how much has been added whilst still preserving the past. It is not a penetration of destructive insertion and damage but the penetrative understanding which originates from keenness of mind, discernment and insight.
As those sedimentary emotions stilled I was left with the understanding that what we need most in these days is the ability to use the simple but powerful word ‘and’. Art allows us to practise this. Sitting on our stools we can say: “This block is grey and brown and a little pink even. This one is white and grey and a little blue.”
Helen goes on to explore how this and then extends from the art into the world and then back to our own creativity. It’s a great piece of writing and an excellent description of the power of taking the time to consume art even, perhaps especially, when it feels so small an act in the world.
From a beautiful post by Charlene Storey of Haver & Sparrow about Autumn rituals for cosy days:
“Reading poetry is one of my favourite things to do when I need to slow down. It’s a different type of reading to prose because we need to pause, wonder, visualise. Poetry is made for days when we need to take a deep breath and be still for a moment. The poem below, The Secret Song by Margaret Wise Brown, is about the beauty that’s so often missed - or never witnessed - by humans. Slowing down allows us to see more, to experience more, and to be part of the magic that’s going on around us. I hope you’re able to see it too whether it’s a sunrise, a falling leaf, or the wind whistling in the trees.”
Jules of The Dialectic shared about a visit to The Saatchi Gallery
“I’m not used to the finer things in life. Firstly, I don’t seek them out. Secondly, I couldn’t afford them if I wanted them. Thirdly, I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable moving in the circles of those who have them. I imagine we’d have a different outlook on life, and that’s putting it mildly. In addition, I think I was born with impostor syndrome. Nevertheless, today I’m going to tell you about the time I attended a champagne reception at the Saatchi Gallery in London. …
The exhibition was the perfect refuge on a winter’s evening in London. The champagne, gifts and brightly-lit interior contrasted with the dark, bustling streets outside and imbued us with a festive glow.”
Sal Randolph of The Uses of Art wrote about Sarah Sze’s Superabundance
And there’s a lot of good stuff in there but what I noticed first was this from the intro:
“To experience art, to write about the experience of art, is to risk defeat. Here’s what’s consoling (as an artist) and inspiring (as an experiencer of art): whatever the experience of one visitor, on one occasion, the work is always much larger. Paintings, sculptures, installations all persist past any single moment. Performances are refracted across multiple audiences. Every work of art is inexhaustible, available to infinite interpretations and uses.”
Experiencing art can be positive, negative, or all kinds of different things in between. And I love this reminder that the one experience is just one experience. It’s a good reminder that we can have our reaction, even a strong one, but perhaps not judge an artist on it. Just observe. It’s something that grounds me as a creator, too … I think of my work as a whole body of work, imagining that if I could create my own retrospective after my death I would then see how it all made sense and worked together. Each piece that I make, each day that I live, is important for what it is but also it is just one piece of a whole lifetime of making, so I can honor it and also not take it too seriously.
Shital Morjaria of Living Pictures shared My unfinished photographs of Banaras
which is a beautiful celebration of how an entire place can be a creative experience …
“Do you know of any city where you can find wanderers, seekers, dreamers and believers together? Banaras is one such place! People gather at the banks of the Ganges to bathe, pray, meditate, and perform rituals. Amidst the serene atmosphere there is busy activity. And that’s what makes it very striking. On many of the ghats one finds delightful graffiti, holy men sitting around among the public and children playing around. Can you imagine a city that is marked by both chaos and order?”
And added:
“I had not anticipated that I would succumb to the charm of this vibrant city. Even when I think of it now sometimes, I feel a strong pull to visit it again and just soak everything in as a person and as a photographer. One more time.”
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