Thursday, September 17, 2015

Missing Art: A Biological Need to Create

"If something - in this case, the arts - feels (emotionally) strongly pleasurable and compelling and thus is valued and actively pursued, this feeling state suggests that it must in some way contribute positively to biological survival. For one of the ways in which nature has ensured that we do things that are essential to survival is to make them feel good."
---- Ellen Dissanayake


I miss making art. I miss making Art with a capital "A". I haven't had much time lately to make anything, let alone examples for my students. I definitely haven't had time to make art that is important to me and allows me to be creative and feel the rush that comes from creating. I miss it.

I usually have a work of art that I can spend a little time on each evening, but each evening has been running errands, doing school work (grading, reading articles, etc.), or coaching. It's not as if my life is all work and no play, but the play right now is few and far between and doesn't involve art. I really don't think that's very good for me. There's something I feel I tap in to when I hit a groove while I'm working on something. There's a buzz. Its as if its not just me working on it, but I have tapped into some creative frequency and all I have to do use allow it to take me over. I picture it as some wavelength floating by in the air, once I in the right frame of mind to see it, all I need to do is reach out and touch it.... the next thing I know, hours have gone by and I have made a ton of progress on a work. I often have to step back and see what I've done because I wasn't even thinking much... I was just making.  I miss this.

I can tell I miss art because I've been crabby and more irritable. I feel like I'm not able to get "stuff" out of my creative system. I'm not as calm or happy. I feel as if something is passing by that's important and I can't see it. It feels like there's some beautiful astrological event happening that I know about, but I don't have time to go see it. Below is an artwork I made a little while ago about such an astrological event.



I read a book while taking classes for my Master's called Homo Aestheticus. In this book, Dissanayake lays out an argument that art comes from a biological and evolutionary need. We developed an ability to create art because it helped us evolve and is an ingrained biological need. Her argument is that almost anything can be art, but we all feel the need to make things special through alteration or arrangement. An example would be how people long ago may have decorated their water-carrying bowl because it took them a long time to make and it was important to them. Decorating it made it more important and something to take care of. But people arrange furniture, decorate their phone cases, rearrange their clothes by color, etc. and it could be considered art.


I think some people have more of a biological need for art than others. They have a need to create and do. This may lead them down many paths, but it is there. When I was working on redoing my garage this summer and building a work table and shelves, I was very happy. I could have worked on it all day. I wasn't making "art", but I was "making" and was very satisfied. I believe I am a person that has some kind of internal motor driven by creating things or arranging them. I think everyone has that, actually, but I need a little more creating to fuel my internal engine than maybe others do.

I think I could be making a lot of different things and it would satisfy my need, I just happened to choose visual arts a long time ago as my outlet. You'd think, as an art teacher, I would be making stuff all the time.... I really wish that was true. I wish I had time to make examples. I wish I could just be creative in class while the kids work, but, unfortunately, that is not reality. In reality, I have meetings 3-4 days a week during my planning times. In reality, I have to work on literacy standards and collect data to present at meetings about formative assessment. In reality, I spend a lot of my time on "teacher stuff" as directed from the powers that be and that stuff doesn't really involve art or satisfy my need to create.

So right now, I really miss Art. I need to make and create. I need to carve out some time for it soon or I feel I may start cracking at the edges. 

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