Re-Connecting

Art does not show people what to do, yet engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action.’ – World Economic Forum, Why art has the power to change the world, 2016 This capacity to create connection makes art valuable for healing, both in the individual and between populations. The connection made to the full self is an integrating force. Healing the world depends on first healing the self, but the engagement with art is connection to the outer world as well. It’s where the deep inner life and deep outer world meet. It joins two cerebral circuits that usually operate separately. Most of the time we are either attentive to the outside world and its demands, or to the inside world with its needs. Art is the occasion when the two are alive together. Multiple websites about art and healing point to art as a way to unify body, mind and emotions. Though most sites concentrate on making art, looking at art can get to feelings a person may not have skills to express. Our natural urge toward balance will look for the art that has meaning for us at the moment, a recognition that can be stabilizing. Seeing art that moves us is connecting to the artist as well, not just seeing personal feelings expressed but feeling them shared. Recently, a friend told me of an experience she had where an abstract painting made her weep. Talking with the artist about it later, she discovered that it had been done shortly after the artist’s mother died. Responding so intensely is cathartic. People seem to seek out the strongest feelings. It may be why the drawings I did after my father’s death and over my mother’s slower disappearance are among the most visited on this blog. Recognizing the presence of those feelings claims a deeper self. Perception is always scanning for what we need. Finding and responding to art is part of the mind’s homeostasis, using what will balance energies by giving attention where it’s needed. Looking at art is both stepping back and seeing within. Knowing oneself is an important step to understanding others. Not recognizing feelings leaves them growing below awareness until they explode at the wrong targets. Art can provide a clarifying mirror that connects to the feeling level of our species. The author of the quote at the top, artist Olafur Eliasson said in another part of his paper. “Art helps us identify with one another and expands our notion of WE from the local to the global.” We are at a necessary threshold for the reorganization of our worldview. With personal transformation, we can make a start to changing the world.