Art is Therapy
While watching the news tonight, I was struck by how difficult it has been for the survivors of China’s massive earthquake — especially the children. I believe art can be used in therapy to lesson the blow of physical and psychological trauma. In fact the news showed clips of mental health workers helping the surviving Chinese kids in shelters describe their fears and experience during the earthquake by drawing. Art therapy is based on the principle that traumatic experience is stored in the memory as an image. Drawing the image helps process the memory cognitively and lessens the trauma to help resolve it. Here’s an interesting article on Glam Spirit…
Audiobooks
There is certainly art in writing, but what about art in relaying the written word? My last two posts got me thinking about how art forms that are typically viewed one way can acquire deeper appreciation when processed differently than what is excepted and how perseverance pays off. I just “read” The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer for my book group. I have been so busy that it’s been hard to find the luxury of leisure time to sit down and read a book. Usually it’s at night when I finally have the chance to do this and I have a Pavlov’s Dog response in falling asleep after the…
Sensory Art
Again, I should have saved all those rubber gloves! This is a another cool use for rubber gloves to help the visually impaired, as well as the sighted, to “get psychologically involved…” as Sheri Khayami, the founder of BlindArt, a British charity group, describes. This group find ways for people to appreciate art through the other four senses and not just relying on vision. Here’s a fantastic painting by artist Charles Wildbank, who happens to be deaf. I love the color and the hyper realism of his work, with expressive movement and clarity. Makes you just want to reach out and touch his work. You can almost smell the salted…
