What does art -- in its many forms -- do for you?

When I look at particular artworks, I recognize a common perspective.

It seems like we are all so fricken’ different. And then you stumble on a painting or a song or a line in a play, and the artist “gets” what you get. They put it out there in the universe and you found it across time and space.

Lately, I am into the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, and the writing of Joss Whedon.

I want art to show me what life is like in another place, another time, another culture – I want to know what it’s like to be someone else.

I like to feel I am living in another place and time, real or imaginary.

Art brings joy to my senses.
When I see art it brings joy to my eyes, ears, and fingers (I love to touch marble art work). It’s like sex for the brain, Ultimate entertainment when done right.
Done poorly and it has the same result as if someone is scratching their finger nails across a chalk board.

To me, mostly, it’s emotional expression. But it can also be inspiration and fascination, and the will to create something from what inspires someone. I think the many art forms are different outlets that adhere to a someone’s personal methods of creation, or whatever other actions and intents may be related with art.

It is food for my soul. That is true of spectating or participating. But for me it is visual arts, I am not so involved with music, I like it in the background but it does not grab me emotionally. I can however get completely lost in a painting I love to see (http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Louis_Morris-Point_of_Tranquility) and a piece of wood can absolutely consume me. This week I made a table out of an old pallet and some fence palings. It is primitive and I rather like it, although the next one will be slightly different in design.

GQ!

It sustains and raises my spirits. It can be music, paintings, literature.

Last night my husband read me a passage The Taming of the Shrew, which made me smile.

It feeds me.

I love art in all forms, especially abstract painting and sculpture. My pride and joy is a huge 5×5 abstract oceanic themed canvas that I was allowed to name by the artist. I call it “Ascension of mind” and it is the focal point of my living room, vivid turquoises, aquas, blues, and golds. I painted the wall it hangs on a metallic bronze last year and it looks amazing on the bronze background.

I also write and love poetry, word art at it’s finest. :-)

Art is one of the legs of my recovery. Art puts me into an altered state of mind and allows me to forget myself and become one with whatever else is out there at the time. My preferred modes are music and dance. I can say I am a musician and a dancer. I also love to write and have hopes, one day, of becoming a writer.

But it is a lovely thing to forget my problems and troubles and to feel as if it doesn’t matter what I accomplish and it doesn’t matter whether I am a worthwhile person or not. Engaging in artistic pursuits makes those things happen.

When I am myself, I can suck like bottom-feeding scum. When I play my horn, none of that matters. For an hour or two, I am perfect. It’s amazing, because I’m really not a different person, but all that shit I live with doesn’t matter when I am making music with others and they aren’t telling me to shut-up. If they don’t like what I do, it’s a big problem, though. So art doesn’t always work. I need good feedback on what I am doing. But it is so much better than being me, normally, when it is going well.

It gives me a chance to get out all the designs that are always filling my head.

“If you ask a ballerina, a watercolorist, a violinist, a writer, an actor on the stage, or any other artist where their craft comes from, they will often tell you they are just another medium for Art, on the same level as the paintbrush, pen or bow. Art swells up inside of them, in waves of crescendos and silences until bursting forth on the canvas with which they have been gifted.”
“In short, Art starts in the heart and is meant to touch hearts.”
(copyrighted in the Deaf Way II Anthology)

One day last year, I looked around me and all my art was gone—my act of creating and the things I’d created had disappeared from my life due to several reasons. I worked to get rid of the reasons… and realized that without art, I am soul-dead. I’ve been doing art since as long as I can remember and literally can’t thrive without it.

What kind of work do you do, @linguaphile?

Art to me isn’t only high blown art with a capitol A. Sure, that has it’s place. There is that Pantheon of the greats that deservedly get tons of adulation. But when you ask, what does art do for me I think of art in all it’s myriad forms, both sophisticated and humble. I think I could honestly say that aside from love, I live for art.

I love folk art and folk music and folk dance. It amazes me the time and skill that went into some old forms of folk art. There are crazy creative things like hair lockets for mourners where they took the deceased’s hair and wove it into the tiniest intricate braided designs and placed it under glass in a locket with the person’s portrait. There are wheat braided sculptures, quilts, and many more things. I love it all because what it says to me is that everyone has the urge to create art What it gives me is a connection to that person from another time through a passion for self expression shared,

Shaker furniture shows me the beauty of simplicity.

I love the art of adornment from primitive tribal body painting on up to Balenciaga, Dior, Lagerfeld, McQueen, and Galliano….trying to hold back here, I could name many more, trust me! I just love that there seem to be limitless ways in which to change the shape form and expression of the human body through clothing. Hell, isn’t clothing better than plastic surgery? It allows you to be so many things without destroying your essential body integrity.

Another thing I get out of art is to experience another time and place through the magic of the movie theatre.
Great literature gives me insights into the human condition and helps me to understand people. I read a book when I was very young that was about gay lovers and I remember thinking that love is beautiful and that love is love whatever form it takes.
Oh I could go on forever, but you get the idea. Art is essential to me. Nothing could take its place and it has made me who I am.

@wundayatta High school English teacher. Why?

NO, @linguaphile. What kind of artistic work do you do?

headslap Oops @wundayatta :D Ditz moment!

In order of most frequent to least frequent: writing poetry and short stories, filmmaking, storytelling, theater, decoupage, found object transformation, clothes sewing, painting, drawing, cartooning, photography, performing covers of songs, interior design, some dance— I’ve also dabbled in batik, shibori, silk painting, and want to do more fabric arts.

linguaphile Wow, don’t you do costumes too?

@Earthgirl Yeah, but not for a long time—last time was 5 years ago. I was alone a lot when I was growing up—only child and there weren’t any neighborhood kids to play with so reading and doing art was how I kept myself occupied. Not a bad way to stay busy, IMO :D

linguaphile It’s good that you found that outlet for expressing yourself so early. My mother always says that as soon as we were old enough to sit up and hold a crayon she put one in our hands, lol. I have the happiest memories of me and my sisters making doll clothes and paper dolls. It kind of led me into what I do for a career, and my sister as well. We both went into design. I do clothing and she does interior design.In high school art class was where I was happiest.

@Earthgirl I agree about art classes—the total oasis in the craziness called high school!! Your memories with your sister sounds like a perfect way to spend a day :) My daughter’s the same. She’s always making or altering something. Her favorite thing to do is to cut things up and until she understood what she could and couldn’t cut, it was hair-pulling for a while!

The opportunity to appreciate beauty.