How art can change your perspective on life
Creating art has always been a passion and a big comfort in my life. I went through a dry spell during my “busy years” in startups, only to have art as my life float during a very challenging period in my life.
I started timidly diving back in creating art, sketching in my journal and once I got started, I could not stop. I just couldn’t remember why I ever let go in the first place.
Reconnecting with my art reminded me of the transformative power art has on our lives. First of all when you create you start to see the world and yourself in different light, or to be more precise in light.
Everything is just a combination of shapes, light and shadow open to interpretation by each artist that tries to recreate what they see on paper. Even the same artist may depict the same theme in a million different ways, depending on emotion, technique, mood, angle and thoughts around the story of the theme. This is why I like to revisit the same topic again and again, I feel I get closer to its pure essence with each intrepretation. This realisation, that everything is a combination of shapes and light open to interpretation, is liberating, not only to your creative process, but even to your self-image. You realise you too obey to this rule, and everybody -including yourself- will interpret you, your message, your inner self, your beauty, however they feel in the moment and they view the world in general.
The other immediate effect bringing art into my daily life again had on me, is it helped me become more mindful and present in the moment. The moment you try to draw a banana without looking at a banana you realise you’ve seen a banana, but never really looked at a banana before. You start noticing more details in everything you see around you and be more present as you go through your day. Also taking the time to draw and focus on a topic is in reality a meditation practice, so if you, like me, have a hard time meditating with the help of an app and what not, this may be the right practice for you. Here's a read on why making art is the new mediation on WaPo.
In the various art communities online (including NFT communities of course) you can get inspiration and learn a lot of tips and techniques, but the most important thing you’ll learn there is the art of kindness and vulnerability. People share courageously their work and their progress and no matter how perfect or imperfect it may be in your eyes there is always someone that really likes it! Always! In any case all the comments are empowering and uplifting and as you start commenting and engage more yourself you cannot help but notice how much kinder you are with strangers vs yourself, enabling you to continue on your journey with much more self-love and self-care.
I’d love to know the impact art has had on your life. Tweet me!
