The Role of Art in Healing

I was so delighted when I was able to start drawing and painting again recently, after I recovered enough from surgery. I instantly felt much better, and instinctively I knew that I would continue to make progress in healing at a quicker rate, thanks to the art.

March at Butler Island, graphite, Jeannine Cook artist

Even more important to me was getting to the stage where I could try to incorporate the surgery in a drawing so as to exorcise the whole event and move on in life.

recovery from Surgery, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

My feeling that my world was becoming more serene and coherent again through art was echoed recently by a remark made to me by a fellow artist. She had just returned to art-making too, after a hiatus of two years. During that time, she had battled cancer. Her conviction, she told me, was that the fact she had left off creating art two years ago had somehow contributed to her getting sick. Now that she is painting again, she feels much better. Her story impressed me with the power that art can have, not just for viewers, but for artists, as a healer.

I have written before about the powerful, if subtle, effect art can have in hospital and other medical settings. The role of helping artists heal themselves seems less well explored publicly, yet one knows of many artists who have dealt with important issues in their lives through art. I remember, many years ago, seeing a series of paintings of a black crow lying in snow that stopped me in my tracks. It was apparently a series of works done by an artist who had been recently widowed. She had found this dead crow, and it became the vehicle through which she could come to better terms with her bereavement. They were memorable, powerful paintings.

Thoughts about this important role of art as healer for artists themselves were running through my mind when I was listening today to a delightful interview on the BBC World Service with singer/musician/writer Salman Ahmad of Junoon. He was talking about his recently published book, A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution, and the accompanying disc which is soon to be released. This balanced, thoughtful Pakistani-American citizen of the world, who comes across as joyously constructive about matters of peace and understanding, used a phrase which caught my attention. It was "whispers of the heart".

Somehow this phrase expresses perfectly the subtle role that art plays in each artist's life, through music, visual art, poetry, drama or any other medium. Not only does an artist hear these whispers of the heart when creating art, but the expression seems to explain wonderfully what happens when the art is helping to heal the artist while he or she is working.

Rewards of "Look Closely, Look Often" for Artists

Every artist who works from real life intuitively knows that familiarity with a subject brings rewards. A wonderful plein air artist from California, Marcia Burtt, written about in a June 2010 American Artist article, made a remark which really resonated with me about this. When talking about working on location, she said, "choosing a location is based on many variables. If I haven't been painting much, I can spend whole days driving around looking for a subject. If I've been painting regularly, everything looks beautiful. That's the reward for spending hours intensely observing nature - you start seeing beauty everywhere." (my emphasis)

There is a quiet and insistent alchemy at work when one is involved in depicting natural objects in the studio or painting plein air. The more one observes, the more one sees. The light changes the forms, the colours, the sense of space. The world seems to become quieter, more intense. And the more you paint or draw, it is true, beauty appears at every turn. It is as if nature becomes generous with her bounty, allowing the artist to slip on another set of eyes that are keener in perceiving beauty in all its definitions. Perhaps we know the subject matter better in all its complexities after working intensely, but it does often seem that such familiarity allows the brain to relax and see beauty more and more.

I found this generosity of nature at work recently as I started painting and drawing the wonderful Southern Azaleas (A. indica) that have been blooming on our area. I started by a large watercolour triptych, but then found the azaleas' beautiful shapes and purity kept "talking" to me. So I did another smaller watercolour. Finally, before the azaleas disappeared for the season after their brief burst of glory, I turned to silverpoint to depict their beauty again, combining it with other issues I wanted to address.

Azalea indica, silver-copperpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

It was as if the azaleas were rewarding me for my close attention to them, as I studied the intricacies of their flower forms, the play of light that described each petal, the individual quirks of each flower and leaf.

This generosity of nature is consistently available to every artist, I believe. If we can spend enough time becoming immersed in nature, in whatever way we chose to depict its aspects, the rewards of beauty and inspiration, of delight and fascination, of awe and a sense of the marvellous are all there for us if we wish. Our role, our quid pro quo with nature, is to share with others this beauty through our art, to become ambassadors and passionate advocates on behalf of nature. Not such a bad exchange!

Prayers answered - for now - with Georgia Council for the Arts

For this year, at least, the Georgia Council for the Arts exists, albeit in leaner form. The last day of the Georgia legislative session saw the passage of a 2011 budget which included funding for the arts. Hallelujah!

In fairness for having used this blog to inveigh about the dangers to the arts in Georgia, I will quote the open letter that the Head of Georgia Council for the Arts, Susan Weiner, has just sent out.

An Open Letter to Georgia’s Artists, Arts Organizations, and Arts Patrons

Congratulations! Your efforts kept Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) alive. Your exercise of political will is responsible for our state continuing to have a state arts agency. GCA was the recipient of thousands of emails and telephone calls from you and fellow Georgians. And, we received scores more from around this nation.

We know what Georgia would be like without the arts. We must remember to tell others, because the State of Georgia will face at least another year of fiscal constraints due to this recession. Yes, it is possible that GCA could be threatened again next year.

What would Georgia be like without the arts? Here are some of the answers we read in your emails.

Economic Impact
· GCA awards in FY 2009 of $3.9 M returned over $6.1 M to our counties and cities sales tax revenues. GCA grantees made money for Georgia.
· The Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP study showed a $376 M economic impact to the state, with only 98 GCA grantees participating

Community Development
· A nonprofit arts organization is the fifth-largest employer in Miller County; the home of the state’s beloved Swamp Gravy
· Renovation of downtown buildings for the non-profit Averitt Arts Center motivated the private investment of an additional $14 M to that city’s vitality
· Last Sunday, the Morris Museum offered free entrance to 1,000 visitors made possible because by its GCA award

Federal & Regional Dollars
· Some of Georgia’s taxpayers’ dollars going to Washington DC will return to be invested at home
· NEA State Partnership Grant and South Arts regional grants to artists and arts organizations will continue to provide support

Arts Education
· Davidson Arts Magnet School ranked 1st in the state in SAT scores 4 of last 5 years and demonstrates the value of arts education
· Over 30,000 students benefited from in-school and after-school arts education by the Alliance Theatre because of the GCA award; tens of thousands of students across the state enjoyed similar benefit
· Georgia was ranked second in the nation for student participation in the national Poetry Out Loud competition

Arts Industry
· Georgia is ranked third in US for arts employment, almost 90,000 artists
· There are almost 20,000 arts-related businesses Georgia based on Dunn & Bradstreet, Inc. research
· Georgia’s art industry is in the for-profit, not-for-profit, and self-employed sectors of our economy; our state’s artists work in all three sectors

Tourism & Film Industries
· Cultural Heritage Tourism is the fastest growing and most revenue-generating form of tourism
· Georgia has benefited from recognition through the Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony awards won by Georgia’s artists
· Without Georgia’s artists (ex., actors, graphic designers, lighting and scene painting artists and technicians, film editors, animators, costumiers, writers), would our state have a tourism, film, and digital industry?

We owe a debt of gratitude to those legislators who understand these reasons and one more: it is the arts that cultivate our ingenuity, creativity, and humanity. It is these traits will lead Georgia into a more prosperous future.

Susan

I think the letter makes an eloquent case for the arts, not only here in Georgia but anywhere in the world. We would all be enriched greatly if the arts were regarded more as society's lifeblood and sustainer of civil discourse.

Prayer for the health of the Arts, Georgia style

It seems that lots of prayers and incantations still need to be offered if the Georgia Council for the Arts is to survive in Georgia. The fate of the arts apparently hangs by a single thread in the review of the budget, and that thread is reportedly Representative Jerry Keen, from St Simons Island, Georgia.

In an area where the arts not only form an integral part of the community (for both local residents and retirees who have made this area home) but are a lifeline to young people who would otherwise be frequently handicapped in terms of art experiences, this is sad and amazing. I find it so strange that politicians deem it "wise" and "responsible" to impoverish the quality of their fellow citizens' lives, particularly at a time when any uplifting experiences that the arts could bring are needed to offset daily economic concerns. How short-sighted!

The fact that Georgia would become the only state in the US without any state arts agency, thus foregoing any federal supporting dollars, would seem to be very poor business sense as well. Bad publicity for Georgia, bad investment policies in terms of attracting tourists to the state, terrible messages to Georgia's youth about elected officials' concerns for their future success. How does one attract investments and new business to come to Georgia when the quality of life is manifestly of no importance whatsoever?

It is time that Representative Jerry Keen and his fellow elected politicians think a little more as statesmen and remember that life in Georgia is more than just the next election cycle. Particularly when the next election for Representative Keen falls due this year...

The Artist's Eye

When I was talking to an artist friend recently, she commented on her diffidence about drawing. She said that she had difficulty perceiving things spatially sufficiently accurately to draw them. I reminded her that each artist's eye is personal, and that each of us perceives things in a different fashion. There is no one correct way to organise space in art, especially today.

As I was talking to her, I kept thinking of the Fauves, and the recent art treasures that are coming to auction as a result of famous art dealer Amboise Vollard's personal art collection being released from its long-held Société Générale safety deposit box, where it lay from World War II until 1979.

Amboise Vollard

Sothebys is to auction off famous, brilliantly vibrant paintings such as André Derain's Arbres à Collioure, one of his most emblematic paintings.

Arbres à a Coullioure, 1905, oil on canvas, Andre Derain

It is the perfect example of the artist's eye being individual, bold and really unique. Organising space can be highly original, as Derain showed. The trees in this 1905 painting are patterned, with pure colours juxtaposed to convey the pulsating, brilliant Mediterranean light. The landscape is pure energy, the space organised for maximum dynamic impact. Indeed, Derain himself remarked, "Le Fauvisme a été pour nous l'épreuve du feu. Les couleurs devenaient des cartouches de dynamite; elles devaient décharger de la lumière." (Fauvism was the trial by fire for us. Colours became charges of dynamite; they had to explode with light.) The Fauvists needed to have an eye that was radically different, for instance, from that of the Impressionists who had proceeded them.

Perhaps Odilon Redon summed up the "artist's eye" situation the most eloquently. He said, "The artist will always be a special, isolated, solitary agent with an innate sense of organising matter." That means that each of us, as an artist, basically has license to organise our art as we deem fit on the painting or drawing surface. That is both a luxury and a challenge!

The Arts and Young People

On Sundays, I frequently listen with fascination and pleasure to the NPR programme, "From the Top", hosted by Christopher O'Riley, during which amazingly talented young people play classical music and talk with Christopher. This past Sunday, a delicious young woman, aged nine, was interviewed and then played Franz Liszt's Gromenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes). Her name is Umi Garrett and she is garnering prizes and kudos both in the United States and Europe for her mastery of the piano. What interested me and resonated especially was that her early talent for music was also accompanied, from 2 1/2 years old, by classical ballet. She also loves to paint and is good at maths, science and a host of other things.

In other words, she is a stellar example of what can happen when a young person is exposed to the best in what the arts can offer. It is not just in school that children need to be exposed to the arts, it is in everyday life, in every imaginable sphere. This is one area where it becomes so serious that the Georgia Legislature envisages elimination of the Georgia Council for the Arts, the central state funding mechanism that fosters the arts. When possibilities for young people to attend performances of music, ballet or theatre, to visit art museums, galleries or festivals or learn of new forms of art in the public arena dry up, the general level of culture is diminished.

I know personally how memorable live performances can be to a child. Growing up on a farm in Tanzania, there were few such opportunities. It was thus all the more special that on my first trip to England, my mother made a special effort to ensure that I was able to see the Royal Ballet dancing Swan Lake. I was five years old - it was magical - and I have loved ballet ever since. In the same way, a year or so later, the legendary pianist, Paul Badura-Skoda, came to our nearby town, Arusha, to visit his brother. He was persuaded to give a piano recital, in a small theatre with a tin roof ... it rained during his performance and the din above seemed only to underline the exquisiteness of his interpretations of Chopin or Mozart pieces. That evening was one of the most memorable moments of my life - I was so excited that I was soon learning to play the piano myself, not at all well, I hasten to add. But the whole experience helped make me forever a lover of music.

This  recording was made about the time I firstheard Paul Badure Skoda play the piano.

I was lucky - my family made the effort to give me such opportunities. But in Georgia, if opportunities for young people dry up, then we are all the poorer.

Elimination of the Georgia Council of the Arts, take two

Give artists a few hours to get organised, and the angry buzz rises to a crescendo! It seems that the e-mails are flying around Georgia about the likelihood that the Legislature will "zero" out the Georgia Council for the Arts. My e-mail in-box is filling up fast as everyone tries to contact anyone who is likely to protest this decision to the Senate.

The more one thinks about this choice of "economising" to close the huge budget gap in the State budget, the less impressed one becomes about the arithmetical prowess of the legislators. I understand that the overall return for every dollar invested in the arts in Georgia is threefold and counting. That would suggest a very decent rate of return that anyone would welcome in, say, the stock exchange. In a time when everyone is hoping and praying that the economy revives and people find jobs, it seems sad indeed that a very diffuse but real economical stimulus source be eliminated. The arts are not just one single industry, unlike carpet-making or insurance or many other economical activities. The arts are incredibly diverse, spread out all over the State, even in the most remote corners. They engender the most varied of activities: they bring tourists, fill restaurants and hotels, give business to gas stations, art, clothing and hardware stores. The list is as varied as one's imagination, but all these different transactions and actions help drive the economy.

To use an extreme example: imagine New York without theatres, museums, concert halls. What would that city be like? Each of those jewels in New York's crown exist because there is some form of financial assistance to supplement the direct ticket sales or entrance fees, for these can never cover all costs. Most enlightened places, cities, states or countries, recognise that the hallmark of a civilised society includes support for the many forms of art. This support is not only a good investment financially, but it is also an investment in future generations' successful education. It also ensures citizens' ability to find intellectual stimulation, joy, serenity, fascination, amusement – that can lift them out of their own lives for however brief a moment.

It is hard to understand how Georgia's legislators can be so unaware of the incredibly negative and damaging consequences of kicking out the underpinnings from Georgia's arts. I hope the angry buzz of the arts-appreciating citizens of this State gets through to the Senators and Governor and persuades them not to be utter philistines.

Elimination of Georgia Council for the Arts and related Arts Funding

Eliminating Georgia Council for the Arts is apparently the "enlightened" way in which the Georgia Legislature is closing a budget gap for 2011. The budget for the arts was first slashed almost to nothing and then, yesterday, the vote passed the House to "zero" the Arts. Nothing, nada, niente - Georgia now will lead the way in the nation in NOT HAVING A STATE ARTS AGENCY. Wonderful!

Not only does this mean that the activities usually funded by the Council for the Arts will not now be supported. It means that National Endowment for the Arts funding cannot be received either - perhaps part of the assertion of the anti-Washington ethos? More importantly for the large swaths of Georgia who are not endowed with Atlanta's resources, it means that they will receive no Grassroots Arts Programme funds. These GAP monies have not been huge sums distributed to each county on a per capita basis for the past fifteen or more years, but they have been vital seed money. Countless small arts groups have been able to enrich their communities, young and old, with music, dance and theatre performances, art exhibitions and other visual art activities. The communities devised the programmes and applied for the funding on an annual, competitive basis. The arts funding was thus able to perform a magical multiplier effect at the grass roots of Georgia, and everyone benefited from a small but vital investment of tax dollars. This "cultural fertiliser" especially enriched the younger portion of each county, so important for many rural areas.

How can the level of education be raised for Georgia's youth if music, theatre, art and everything in between are defunded, eliminated and, by implication, made of no importance? Georgia is already lamentably far down the ladder of general academic achievement. In their dubious wisdom, Georgia's legislators are ensuring that not only will Georgia be the laughing stock of the nation in terms of culture; it will also slip further down the ranking of student achievement. Apparently legislators do not understand the vital inter-connectedness of the arts and learning about maths, geometry, literature, and science.

One of the many Georgia cultural institiutions dependent to some measure on Georgia Council for the Arts

The faint remaining hope of reversing this amazingly sad decision basically rests on Governor Perdue's shoulders. Alas, I am not holding my breath.

Welcome to Georgia, y'all! Don't count on finding a thriving cultural scene in Georgia.

The Siren Calls of Spring

The stirring of spring, with new growth and blossoms, energises most people. We emerge from shorter days, colder weather and general winter constrictions into the bright, clear light of spring. As days lengthen and the weather grows warmer, everyone starts to think further afield, of more outside activities, more travel, and more plein air art if you are an artist. Endless ideas of where to go to paint come back with insistence, of what to paint or draw, of how to celebrate the world around one.

These siren calls of spring return each year as a renewal of energies for me as an artist. By the end of the winter period, I find myself often flagging, somewhat lacking excitement about subject matter for art. Although the same wonderful flowers and scenes return each spring, they inspire me to draw or paint them, leading to debates about how to depict them in a fresh fashion. Flowers, especially, are my delight. Watercolours and silverpoint both lend themselves to such subjects. The big, bold Azalea indica or Southern Azaleas, for instance, are wonderfully sculptural, their flowers dominating the spring landscapes for a brief and glorious period. I find the subtleties in colour endlessly interesting in the different flowers - Nature is masterful in colour-mixing. It is therefore a huge challenge to be faithful - if one wants to go that route - to these blooms.

Azalea indica George L. Tabor

I realised, years ago, that I owe my mother a big debt of gratitude for any accuracy I may have in colour assessment. As a very young child, barely able to walk, I used to go with her to the brilliantly radiant fields of annual flowers in bloom that we grew for seed on our farm in East Africa. To keep each strain of flower pure and with correct growth, any plant that was of poor quality or with blooms different from the desired type had to be pulled up before it could set seed. I soon became very accurate in detecting variations in flower colour, and I think I retained that eye in later years. I do remember, too, the countless buckets of beautiful, ebullient flowers that we would take back to the house to enjoy because we hated just to pull up a plant and let it die in the hot tropical sun.

It was thus natural, I suppose, that in my art, I return again and again to the sheer joy of flowers when they start blooming in spring. Not only are they lovely in themselves, but to me, they signify much that is wondrous in nature. They offer solace, serenity, hope and energy. No wonder the Japanese celebrate hanami or " blossom viewing" in festivals, of which the most famous are the Cherry Blossom Festivals all over Japan each spring. There is a palpable sense of delight and awe as the Japanese walk beneath these exquisite blossoms and pay tribute to the beauty of nature in all its brief glory.

Cherry Blossom Time in Japan

The same urgent delight and excitement fills me as spring brings its bounty of flowers to the Georgia coast. It is time to start painting!

Time for what we Value

I spent a wonderful day yesterday drawing plein air with my friend and artist, Marjett Schille. It is gloriously the height of spring, with azaleas bursting forth, wisteria garlanding the trees with soft mauve fragrance, and the birds in courtship songs and displays everywhere one goes. We went to an island in the Altamaha River Delta,  Butler Island. South of Darien on the Georgia coast, it is accessible by road, but the area harks back to the antebellum rice plantation days. There are still the dikes and canals, along with the "trunks" which are the historic tide-driven gates that allow water to flood the rice fields carved out by slaves so long ago. The landscape is very much still man made, but since it is a Georgia State Wildlife Management Area, the ponds and fields are home to many bird species, enormous fish and clearly, many raccoons - to judge from the footprints along the sandy roads. In other words, a perfect place to go and paint or draw in spring.

Osprey Patrol, Butler Island, graphite, Jeanine Cook artist

While we were working there in companionable silence, amid a chorus of bird song from the bushes all around us, I kept thinking back to a passage I had recently read in the May edition of American Artist, where classical oil painter Patricia Watwood is quoted as hoping that, amongst other reactions, viewers would respond to her art by sensing"that there is time enough for the things we value. Time to craft a painting, to study, to learn, to enjoy, and time to sit still and contemplate a picture and the world that it contains."

There is a grace and a privilege for each of us if we can somehow organise our lives as artists - and viewers of art too, of course - to have enough time for matters artistic. To be able to have enough flexibility to put aside a block of time just to go off and paint, single-mindedly, for a day outside in some beautiful place. To have had the time to hone one's skills sufficiently that one can feel comfortable working plein air. To have the inner serenity, without nagging preoccupations, to be able to enjoy the whole experience of being out in nature, where ponds pulse with life and the trees are visibly leafing out hour by hour. And indeed, at the end of our time of painting and drawing, to look at Marjett's lovely watercolours and marvel at her creativity that results in highly original yet evocative paintings.

Ensuring that we all have time for the people, the things and activities we value: that is the true art of living, I suspect. As an artist, I felt that my day on Butler Island yesterday met those criteria wonderfully.