Tag Archives: Vancouver Island School of Art

Reclaiming everyday creativity

In a recent online writing workshop Molly Caro May said:

When you are making art – any kind of art – you are naturally soothing your nervous system. Creation is really organizing for our nervous systems. Even if you’re writing about something painful, just the formation and artistry of it is really grounding.
The point is: make art. All the time.

Molly’s statement resonated with me. I feel better when I’m making art and I see the joy in others when they are (non-pandemic times) visiting and ‘playing’ in my studio. An art professor friend says taking classes, and making art is cheaper than therapy. It seems obvious, and I know this intuitively, but to hear Molly connect creativity directly to the health of our physical bodies seems to add gravitas to the statement.

There is scientific evidence that being creative (including art, craft, writing, music making, and dancing) affects our cognitive, psychosocial and physical health. In this article in Psychology Today by Dr. Cathy Malchiodi, she notes the conclusion from a review of existing literature of over 100 studies:

Most of these studies concur that participation and/or engagement in the arts have a variety of outcomes including a decrease in depressive symptoms, an increase in positive emotions, reduction in stress responses and, in some cases, even improvements in immune system functioning.

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi named the concentrated, absorbed state displayed by artists at work as flow. In 1990, Dr. Czikszentmihalyi published Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikscentmihalyi, 1990

In North America (the Western world, perhaps?) we have devalued creativity in our daily lives. What used to be the norm in public schools (sewing, cooking, art, music and woodworking classes) cannot be taken for granted now. The opportunities for people to learn and enjoy simple creative endeavours are reduced; it’s all considered a luxury at best, and pointless to many.

Not surprisingly, creativity is valued when it can be commodified. Business has embraced creativity for its contribution to profitability. The Flow Genome Project self-identifies as The Official Source for Peak Performance and Culture. It advertises its collaboration with companies like Google, Nike and Goldman Sachs.

It seems obvious that we need to recapture the pleasure of creating things – not for profit, or for performative value – but for our own health and enjoyment. If ever there was a time that our nervous systems – individually and collectively – need soothing, it’s now.

Go ahead and do something creative – every day. Better still if it’s something temporary and not Instagram worthy: living room solo dancing, harmonizing with your favourite singers, making and writing in a private notebook. The writer Annie Dillard wisely said… How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Here’s an interesting idea….or two…..

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….courtesy of John Luna, who is giving a series of three lectures this month at the Vancouver Island School of Art. (John reminds me of the writer, Adam Gopnik. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of art, history, philosophy, literature….His lectures are dense, entertaining and fast-moving. I certainly didn’t understand all the references, but I enjoyed the experience! The lecture was entitled “Empty glances: photography, painting, witness and imagination.”)

The first idea is pretty obvious, once you think about it….but it hadn’t ever occurred to me before. All of those still life paintings, and domestic scenes in Dutch painting of the 17th century are a direct result of the Protestant Reformation. The Biblical scenes and the saints were left to the Catholics. The Protestants, and the humanists, had to find new material.

Still Life by Pieter Claesz

The second idea came from a viewing of Vermeer’s painting Woman with a Pearl Necklace. ( I wasn’t familiar with this painting, and immediately thought of Girl with a Pearl Earring.)

John pointed out that Siri Hustvedt, in Mysteries of the Rectangle, hypothesizes that this is a coded Annunciation painting. I find that a fascinating idea.

As with all of Vermeer’s painting (all being a mere 36 in known existence) light, perspective, shadow, framing and editing are paramount. The first time Ms Hustvedt saw this painting, she spent four hours looking at it. It’s a hint, perhaps, of what we might see if we gave artworks more time and attention.

Paradise Lost

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Paradise Lost at Slide Room Gallery

I was very happy that I stopped by the Vancouver Island School of Art a couple of weeks ago to see the art installation, Paradise Lost, by Xane St. Philip.

Xane’s installation completely transformed the gallery. (If you haven’t been there, imagine an old school –and I do mean old school— building’s basement, dark and dingy, albeit with a few windows and doors….not the most aesthetically pleasing, or comfortable space.)

The space itself became a work of art. Xane gave an artist’s talk, and explained some of the features of Paradise Lost. He talked about colour theory, as espoused by Josef Albers. He touched on the components of a classical garden, and he elicited participants’ responses to the title of the installation, Paradise Lost.

Just as the beauty of a garden is transitory, Paradise Lost has come and gone from the Slide Room Gallery at VISA. I look forward to the catalogue, and I’ll never again look at that gallery space in quite the same way.