How does art help us understand ourselves?
I was gifted this book and it's now become a bit of an obsession.
In Art as Therapy, Alain de Botton proposes, in a friendly and whimsical way, that art’s (making or appreciating) major purpose is to act as a therapeutic medium that soothes the psyche and supports the soul. He proposes a methodology in which art functions to help us remember, find hope, understand sorrow, rebalance ourselves, find self understanding, experience growth, and discover a deeper appreciation of our world.
He boldly comments on what counts as good art, what kind of art one should make, how it should be bought and sold, how it should be studied, and how it should be displayed. He imagines a gallery space in which rooms and floors are curated to address specific psychological needs; equipped with a therapist to act as gallery facilitator/host. The therapist’s roll being to aid visitors in discovering specific works that may address their personal therapeutic needs!
Being both therapist and artist, I find his pitch imaginative, intriguing, and inspiring.
Suggesting that art’s main function is to act as a therapeutic medium deeply resonates. My own art practice has often been about repetition as a form of catharsis. For me, the process of meditation through construction has provided me with a medium to manage my greatest longing, most difficult sorrows, and most anxious times.
It is in the act of hand building three hundred and twenty nine ceramic pots to count the passing days without my partner or stitching poems of love into hundreds of meters of fabric trim that I managed to work out my deepest concerns. For me art making has always been a therapeutic practice.
As a therapist I am deeply interested in the unique and different ways we think and feel about our world and our experiences. Being able to support people to find their own personal meaning, value, and insight is a creative collaboration in and of itself - the client being the artist and the process of therapy being the medium.
De Botton’s musings appeal to both my experience as therapeutic facilitator and artistic creator and got me thinking about a project I completed last summer. At an artist residency in Ontario, I brought my passion for art making and therapeutic interviewing together for an inquiry project.
I asked participants two questions. What were their thoughts on death, and if they would they like to be buried, cremated, or something else? In conjunction with these inquiry interviews I harvested raw clay from the area and set about to construct hand built funerary vessels for each participant. As I constructed the containers I reflected on what each person had shared and how he had talked about their life experiences.
Once I had completed the vessels, I then brought the participants to view the completed containers and talk about which one they felt representational of them. The project was the first time I had combined my interviewing skills with my practice of meditative construction and I was interested in how I these two processes affected each other.
In the spirit of the summer inquiry project and in celebration of Alain de Botton’s proposal I am excited to be organizing another collaborative inquiry project. I am are currently scouting artists to conduct interviews to answer the question: How does art help us understand ourselves? The project findings will be part of an ongoing web journal and with any luck the project will find it’s way into an exhibition space. Hit me up if your interested in being a part of the project.