“To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.” Schumann
It is November, the month of rain and falling leaves, gray days with sun streams, warm hearts and full bellies. It is the month of giving thanks and remembering love. It is a living canvas of beauty. And I am thankful for art, because simply put...art heals every soul it encounters.
I remember clearly the time I had a cancer scare in high school and another one in college. Along with prayer, the support from my family and friends, composing music on the piano, and writing poetry and stories (all while watching my mom paint) helped me heal in ways I cannot explain. It helped me process the fear of my illness and the unknown, while allowing beauty and peace into my wounds. Now jump ahead (quite a few) years later to a time when I've immersed myself into mixed-media art, too, and have experienced great joy and pain in between. I cannot express how freeing it is to create something in an art form that knows no boundaries! Mixed-media is poetry, music, documentation, image...everything that the soul can express.
I happened across these quotes I found to be stunning and striking in a way that cannot be ignored. These quotes should be carried around in your heart as a reminder that art heals if you allow it:
"Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing." ~ Julia Cameron
"Art is a wound turned into light." ~Georges Braque
"Art is our one true global language. It knows no nation, it favors no race, and it acknowledges no class. It speaks to our need to reveal, heal, and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible." ~ Richard Kamler
"I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever." ~Susan Griffin
"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." ~Henry Ward Beecher
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” ~Auguste Rodin
"Art is the stored honey of the human soul." ~Theodore Dreiser
"Making art is like giving a gift: evidence of your spirit and that you are here." ~Patty Mitchell
"I live and love in God's peculiar light" ~Michelangelo
"At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity." ~Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
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As you step out into the darkness that is pain, remember your duty as the artist, or the lover of art, to bring light into the world, to bring gratefulness to the gifts that are presented to you, the gifts of creativity and sharing.
Peace, love, and gratitude,
Mary
