Can art change a person?

A play I saw years ago about the slow development of a friendship between a prosperous businessman and a homeless man he passed every day got me looking differently at “invisible” street people. Other plays I’ve seen, as well as films, have had a tremendous influence on my thinking.

” Can a subjective thing such as beauty found in words or a visual display of some sort alter a person’s life? ”

Beauty is not all that subjective and, objectively, reading your post, your life was altered.

Especially on LSD.

I think your details have answered your question.

Perhaps you could change your question to How has art changed you?

@Nimis The editing window has long expired.

And did you read the last question in the details?

Darn editing window! I do that sometimes. Go with a train of thought and sometimes my bonus last-minute-question(s) are better than my first. :)

As for your bonus question. Nope, don’t think you’re daft at all. Much of life is subjective. I’d even say that the subjective plays a bigger role in molding us than the objective.

Yes. My astrophotography has made me much more patient.

Anything can change a person.

@Hawaii_Jake If it makes you look inward, and think about yourself, yeah, it can change you.

I sometimes credit art – music in particular – with keeping me alive during my high school years. Alienated, depressed, and feeling that nobody understood me was brutal. Then I found music that seemed to “get” me. My cassette walkman and a steady supply of batteries served as my guide through the high school years. I’m not sure if that music changed me, but it certainly feels as if it saved me.

It takes effort not to change. To preserve an image of yourself as a fixed being with a settled point of view, you have to pretty much shut yourself off from the world and others, turn your mind into a closed system that constantly rehearses its positions. Meanwhile, the world and others are constantly eroding that firewall, working their way into the cracks of that closed system. To stay closed requires constant maintenance.

To expose yourself to art is to agree to let the artist get past the firewall. You say, in effect, “OK, I’ll suspend my worldview for this moment and open up to yours”. If you can’t do that, then art just bounces off your shell. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Art is like love in that respect.

I often notice that after I’ve seen a particularly powerful movie, my perspective has shifted. I see life through different eyes, move differently, drive differently, find things funnier or more poignant, etc. I’m not the same.

Yes of course! I was a quiet shy girl who held everything in. When I learned how to paint it released sooo many stressful feelings and it made me more open to the world more open to learning and more open to being social. It also helped me bond with my papa more given that he is an amazing painter he paints a lot of Navajo themed painting that hang on his wall and when we are painting we talk we laugh share stories I feel so much closer to him. Art helped me gain a new best friend (my papa) and helped my school work and social life art is an amazing thing!!

Being an artist – living the life of an artist has to change a person by definition. It is a very very different career and requires the development of very very different instincts separate from creativity.

One must learn to part with each creation, each personal masterpiece leaves forever.