Thursday, March 21, 2013

Making art is an antidepressant

My husband was out of town, and it had been a long day. I finally settled my youngest two in bed and snuggled and storied them to sleep.  It was time for art, but I had to eat dinner first---somehow in making and serving and breaking up arguments I hadn’t actually eaten much myself. It was getting late. Should I just go to bed?

No! I had promised myself art time every day if at all, at all possible. I couldn’t find my sketchbook, so I grabbed a scrappy piece of printer paper and sketched snowdrops from some Victorian botanical art.  Then I played around with colors inside lily shapes for a few minutes. It was a pleasant, peaceful exercise—I love the sound and feel of colored pencils on paper.


I hadn’t made anything exciting, but I was sleepy, so I went to bed.  As I pulled up my blanket, a wave of satisfaction unexpectedly washed through me.  It was my making something feeling--not the tenuous thrill of finishing something I like,  mixed with disappointment that it’s not as good as I hoped, but the simple, grounded happiness that (for me) comes from applying pencil to paper.

There should be a recommended daily allowance for that kind of happiness. About a year ago I realized that when I don’t do art for awhile, my inner light goes dim. I had been determined to get my house in order no matter what, and for a couple months or so I had a clean house and no laundry backlog by giving it my undivided attention. I felt I had no time for art.  It was fun to move around my house without kicking stuff out of the way, and sheer delight to get to church on time because we weren’t sorting chaos to get ready, but I noticed in myself dullness, a listlessness. I thought maybe I was getting down because I was addicted to mess stress.  But one day I did some art (not having connected artlessness to the creeping depression) and unexpectedly zest for life returned.  
I wonder how many people are sad because they are not exercising some vital element of their beings, and they are unaware that this is so. Think about it. What would you love to do if only you had time? Would doing it give you more energy to get other stuff done and actually save you time?  

My house did get messy again, which crowds out art and is also depressing, so now I am learning how to keep a fairly ordered home without being obsessive and self-destructive about it.
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I wrote this awhile ago, before I had this blog.  Circumstances in my life have changed since then, and I’m doing art for many hours a day.  Most of it I can’t put online yet. That dream come true has its own pitfalls. I’ll tell about them pretty soon.

8 comments:

  1. ...if I don't make pictures with words or boards or pencils or ink the depression sneaks up on me like a fast moving train (and when I was in Wheaton, I almost got hit by a train, so I know how fast moving trains move.) It's so good to read your voice; now I know that I'm not alone.

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    1. I almost got hit by a train once too--oh man! Glad this makes sense to you. Each of us are like pieces of stained glass in different colors and we've got to let our own color stay uncovered to shine out.

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    2. It's funny in a way, but not funny at all, that you almost got hit by a train, too. Those double tracks are deceiving. Because, if you don't know, you just don't know that a train is coming in the other direction after the first train passes. But, you can learn real quick...But, I will say that it's funny that I also kick aside the mess. Sometimes things get cleaned-up and painted and fixed and things that need to get built get built, but it all seems to go in cycles. When I have to build or paint the "whatevers", I try to get artistic with it so it satisfies that need to create. But, I have not figured out a way to clean that even comes close to being creative(maybe, I havn't tried hard enough with that idea.)...And I certainly understand the stained glass. Shelly is very good at working with it and will make all the different colors and grains work together into a piece that will flow. It's, for sure, a good metaphore on many levels.

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    3. I don't try to be creative at cleaning. I just try do it often enough and quickly enough that the mess doesn't commandeer my life--either in trying to work around it or in becoming a mountainous impossible task. Sometimes it's just a matter of gritting my teeth and saying--"I will fold these clothes and I will put them away, even though I hate doing it, and then it will be done and I can forget it, and people will not be bothering me about not having any clothes where they can find them." Sometimes I set a timer and say I will clean only until the timer goes off--that way I work fast and I can't turn it into an obsessive project. I think artists (or maybe just me) like to do things in obsessive way. "Regular" people seem to me to move easily between things that they are moderately focused on, and so their lives stay in order on many fronts. It seems like intense focus makes being an artist possible, but then its harder to switch gears, and there is a need to alternate with relaxed dreaminess. Actually, some household tasks fit that bill for me--repetitive things like washing dishes can relax me and the mindlessness helps renew my creativity--folding and sorting clothes falls into that place of moderate concentration that my brain doesn't so much like.
      There. I think I just wrote a post.

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  2. Melissa, this post is truly beautiful. I find this to be ultimate truth in my life as well. I have been an artist all my life (mostly musical, but also a lot of visual art as well). In high school, when I had to start to narrow down my artistic pursuits to focus towards a career, I mourned giving up photography, drawning, and painting. When I decided to give up a career singing opera, a piece of my heart felt snuffed out, and I have yet to regain that fervor. Last month, I joined a small chamber choir, and so far, it has been such a gift. I'm starting to remember why I love to sing. It revives me.

    Your art is beautiful, by the way. I wish I could sit down and let you teach me some drawing skills.

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    1. Thank you, Charlote. Don't stop singing! I doubt I would be very good teacher, but a book you might find interesting is "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." Has very sensible directions to increase drawing ability. Something I've been doing lately is quick sketches with a timer to keep me from trying to rescue or finesse a drawing into being what I want. Drawing something quickly over and over versus drawing something once slowly seems to access drawing knowledge in my brain that I didn't know I had. I think its a great way to improve drawing skill.

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    2. That is such a great idea! I really like that. I'm having surgery in couple of weeks, and that would be a great activity that I could do while stuck in bed. Have you ever heard of the MonArt drawing method? I learned specifically at an art school that taught that method only, and it was wonderful.

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    3. I skimmed a book about it years ago, and it seemed like a good way to learn how to see what you are seeing, if you know what I mean. If you like it, give it a whirl, for sure!

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