Making Art, Making Meaning: What Is Art For?
Maripat Munley
This column is based upon my recent staff development presentation at Haven for Hope. It outlines basic information about creativity and art-making that may be meaningful to readers, writers and the creators of this magazine. Some information may be new, but other data here will ring true to your own experience.
The key to understanding the core tenets of the column title are the answers to these questions: 1.What is creativity? 2. Why do we all have the urge to create? 3. What happens physiologically and psychobiologically when we create art in any form? 4. What is art for anyway? 5. How can we make meaning from art?
What Is Creativity?
In Marie Coombs’ book Hidden Yet Revealed, she tells us that “Creativity expression denotes the use of word, image, sound, or movement in order to name for ourselves and to communicate to other persons something of our experience of mystery hidden yet revealed, both within ourselves and within the world around us.” This is good counsel for us as it links the urge to create to its expression in something tangible such as a poem, painting, photo or other outcome of our inner push to mark life experience or simply to reveal what is beautiful to us.
Why Do We Have the Urge to Create?
Ellen Dissanayake, an ethnologist, has examined the “urge to create” for many years and shared her findings in articles, interviews, and books such as, What Is Art For? (1988) and Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why (1995). She reports that humans making art across eons demonstrate that the behavior has been a species trait. Therefore, it is a biological need for several reasons: 1. Making art makes us feel good. Consequently, we are positively inclined. 2. Humans spent increased time and increased effort making art (often to the exclusion of other activities such as those related to basic physical needs). 3. Frivolous pastimes were not chosen over and over across human history. The conclusion: the urge to create is a universal, biological, human need confirmed across time. Consider the cave paintings of Lascaux, the art of the mentally ill, the passion of the world’s great artists, Native American annual hunt history paintings on tent flaps, or just doodling to maintain focus.
What Happens Physiologically When We Create Art in Any Form?
Visual artists tell us how time passes unnoticeably and how deeply engaged they are when they create. Poets tell us sometimes a poem literally writes itself. It is clear that “something” is happening physically. Certainly dancers are physically changed both interiorly and exteriorly while simultaneously introducing and interpreting image(s) via form and music. The concept of eliciting the relaxation response versus the fight or flight response is one reason change occurs during creative activity. It has been discussed in this column before. The following chart provides a brief review.
PHYSICAL CHANGES OF FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE
VERSUS RELAXATION RESPONSE |
|---|
| FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE | RELAXATION RESPONSE |
|---|
| Metabolism ↑ |
Metabolism ↓ |
| Metabolism ↑ |
Metabolism ↓ |
| Metabolism ↑ |
Metabolism ↓ |
| Metabolism ↑ |
Metabolism ↓ |
| Metabolism ↑ |
Metabolism ↓ |
Benson, H. & Stuart, E. M., The Wellness Book, New York: Simon & Schuster (1992).
Other researchers have taught us that when we meditate, including using art to meditate, there are actual changes in our brains. At the risk of oversimplification, here is a brief summary taken from How God Changes the Brain, the 2009 breakthrough book by neuroscientist A. Newberg, MD, and psychologist M.R. Waldman. Using brain scans, the researchers visually documented which parts of the brain are activated or slowed down during various activities. This exploration can tell us something about how and why we change physically. During meditation the anterior cingulate (one part of the brain) becomes more active, stimulating the amygdala (another part of the brain) to slow down. The amygdala, along with other brain structures is responsible for the fight or flight response. When amygdala activity slows, physical vital signs (pulse and respirations) decrease and the relaxation response occurs naturally. This evidence, added to what ethnologists are saying, helps us understand something about what may be happening physiologically when we are creative. We achieve an altered state and change our energies. Scientists are in the early stages of learning more about creativity and physiology.
What Happens Psychologically When We Create Art in Any Form?
Making art affects us psychologically. This is true whether it is creating a visual image physically present or one elicited through poetry or dance. Here are some examples. Making art is a way of knowing. Think dream interpretation through art and poetry or the relating of a memorable experience. Images have power. Consider the power of advertising or how photographs recall our travels. Images have layers of meaning and can inform us. Think using color or words to tell a story while simultaneously expressing feelings related to the experience. Images touch our interior selves. Think the photos of national disasters, painting and poetry about the inner experience of drug-induced tripping, or expressing meditation experience in poetry or image.
