What Would a Library "Where Art Meets Psychology" Look Like?
Create Me Free is a small snippet of the digital form of this library.
I love libraries. And niche libraries are really fascinating. There's a Jewish library right near me that focuses entirely on works by Jewish authors and works related to the Jewish religion and culture. It's a large library, and it's organized in a way that differs from the regular mainstream library.
When I was in Minnesota, I met my family at a craft library. It was inside of a larger craft and art space where weaver's guilds met, fabric dyeing classes were taught, etc. That library was a big deal for me because I was wandering the shelves, looking at all of the books about knitting and weaving. Of course, that all interests me ... but then I saw "Crochet Saved My Life" on the shelves, too. That was a moment of feeling like I'd really contributed something with my small little book.
Then there's the Sketchbook Project library, a huge collection of all kinds of people filling sketchbooks in unique ways. It was open for seventeen years and I was sad to know that it closed before I could see it in person but also just glad to know that it existed in the world while it did.
So I think about these niche libraries. And how unique they are. And how important. I've always been a "completist." I don't actually collect anything personally. But if I did, I'd want the whole collection. I always read a magazine from first page to last, without skipping ads. I always watch a series from first episode to last, even when the episodes aren't related to one another. I like to read an entire author's collection if I really like the author. So although I don't collect physical things, it's kind of within my personality to be drawn to the idea of curating an entire collection of a specific niche.
And it's gotten me beginning to think ... what would a library like this include for the niche of “where art meets psychology”? Obviously, it would include whatever materials I could get my hands on that specifically explore the link between mental health and creativity. And there's a decent amount of that material. But it would also include books that talk about the topic without drawing the specific links. Biographies and memoirs by and about artists that address their mental heath issues even though they may not draw specific links between art and psychology. Fiction that tackles the topic.
It would include, perhaps, unusual books, like "The Enduring Kiss" by Italian author Massimo Recalcati. This book consists of short vignettes on love ... it's psychoanalytic and overly intellectual but it's also super poetic. He discusses love as seen through the likes of Freud and Lacan ... which means discussing love from a psychoanalytic standpoint. He also references plenty of fiction writers and poets and philosophers. He's not talking about mental health directly, not in the words that we are accustomed to when talking about it. But we are all human, and therefore we all have mental health, and what is more human than love? Would a book like this be too far away from the direct intersection of "art" and "therapy"? Or is this exactly what it’s all about.
I think what I'm trying to say here is that more and more over time I’ve honed my particular interest to the focus of “where art meets psychology.” But in honing my focus, I've started to notice this connection everywhere, so honing it maybe narrowed it but also broadened it … or deepened it. People are talking about this topic - sometimes outright, often more subtly - in every book, every show, every podcast, every conversation. Sure, some of this is the effect of when you're focused on something then you just see it everywhere. But I also think it's a byproduct of the fact that we as humans we all have some kind of creative impulse and we also have some type of mental health.
So I don't know where I would draw a distinction if making a library where art meets psychology. I know a lot of specific themes that interest me ... like how artists across history have coped with mental health diagnosis and how their specific cultures related to that, how mental health challenges themselves have been depicted in art throughout history, how art therapy works and when it doesn't and why, the art and music made by people known to be coping with mental health struggles.
I don’t know what this library would look like in physical form. But Create Me Free is a small snippet of the digital form of this library. I’ve framed my own research here loosely into questions about:
Would it be possible to create a library with sections organized like that? I have no idea but it’s a fun thing to imagine.
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Well said