Oh my gosh! I can say so much about this. I’ve had a voracious appetite for all things artmaking my entire life. The Process is so incredibly fascinating and mysterious to me and even though I know my own process so so well, I’m still astonished to hear how other’s navigate their creativity.
what role does artmaking play in the process of returning to a more natural or wild state?
artmaking. Making time for art. That decisive act alone is already bucking against our time obsessed, productivity obsessed culture. When one is fully engaged in the process of making/playing you disconnect from everything around you and an intense focus on the act of making is all that matters, you’re body is moving, you’re mind is moving, ideas are flowing and you are one with your intuition ( if you’re not thinking too much). Connecting with your own intuition is a HUGE part of returning to a more natural state. You’re building a relationship with your own deeper knowing and trusting it. This is a goal we should all have as we rewild! This state of mind doesn’t care about outcome, or productivity, or money, it’s hungry for flow.
Intense focus, In this day and age with cell phone bleeping at us and email binging and kids asking for help and dogs barking and car alarms blaring, creating space to allow for a deep intense focus is another thing that connects us to ourselves, pulls us away from the distractions and tunes us in deeply. Often I have music on, but even I can’t tell you what exactly was going on in the background, all I could see before me was color, texture, and the imaginative arranging, re-arranging of each new element. I love this space because it feels like a huge wave of clarity.
Artmaking is therapy, similar to meditation, you sit down just to sit and doodle, but things inside of you work their way to the surface. Something niggling around in your brain floats up into view so you can spend time really reflecting and contemplating.
Artmaking as a skill, encourages invention, resourcefulness, playfulness, lightheartedness, joyfulness, it relieves stress, it makes us laugh, it takes us out of taking everything so seriously, it helps us understand others, it helps shift perspectives, it creates new values, IT SHIFTS CULTURE, it makes us forget about obligations and just enjoy the beauty around us, the possibility, the wondrousness of ourselves, our own minds and the wondrousness inside others as well. Our experiences can be mined for meaning and this is where artmaking, for me anyway, holds it’s most precious gift. I could go on for days.