Do you know that being creative releases the same “feel good endorphins” that jogging releases? Doing art actually does make you feel better. It reduces your stress and lowers your blood pressure as well. In addition, being creative improves your ability to learn on all levels. It literally enhances your skills in every other subject. Plato, in ancient Greece, was the first to connect the arts (music in particular) with math. The Greeks, in fact, believed music to be so important that every citizen was required to study music until the age of thirty. They considered music the most important of the arts. Today we know that all of the arts affect both learning and mood in positive ways. So, art really is a type of therapy.
You don’t have to have a desire to become a professional artist or to sell your art to benefit from doing art. This is especially important for parents to know. Your children benefit from doing art in a mired of ways as so do adults.
Mellow Musings
As I walked to my studio this morning, picked up my pen and began to journal, I realized I had allowed this week to get so busy that I had neglected journaling for a few days. When I neglect to journal, I am not quite of the same awareness as I go about my day. Somehow, saying a conscious hello to flowering lilies floating on the sun-sprinkled pond, talking to the fishes and frogs, acknowledging how good it feels to simply breathe and stretch—to be alive—and being grateful—these things awaken me more, not just to the day, but to “joie de vivre.”
This morning, though still summer warm, there was that scent of fall on the gentle breeze that played the chimes in my garden. For me fall is a time for hikes in the woods, biking on the Katy Trail, and workshops. September also brings me to a mellow mood. As we enter the fall of the year, I find myself introspecting about the year thus far. For me it has been a year of major but meaningful change. Life events have caused me to do fewer workshops, but my artwork feels more inspired. So many things just seem to be flowing. I feel at peace and so very grateful.
This week my daughter-in-law, Renee Groenemann, Growth Director at Grace Tree Studio in Cincinnati, sent a contract to me for retail items they will be carrying in their shop. She asked for an inventory of the work and an explanation of how it would be a “Purchase with Conscience.” I found this a very thought provoking question. For me doing anything with “conscience” means doing something that supports my deepest beliefs. Here is my response:
“Art speaks from the very core of the artist, and those who resonate with a work of art are connecting with that artist’s soul. So if you connect with my art to the degree that you want to take it home and live with it, you have a conscious recognition of that connection—it is here in this deep place where we are ONE. Here we understand that to support another is also to support one’s self. If my work touches you on this level, then certainly your purchase of my art is supporting me on that same deep level—therefore, it is a purchase with conscience.”
My you experience this beautiful day with a fullness of consciousness.
