Why should students who aren鈥檛 artistic still make art?
Creating art has so many benefits, even for those who may not see themselves as having a particular talent. Here鈥檚 something I wrote about the topic for as a :
I had just finished a collage鈥攊mages of flowers and sunrises and words cut out of magazines, glued in layers along with beads and glitter鈥攖o express how I felt that day. Then I showed it to someone close to me.
鈥淭hat looks like something a 5-year-old created.鈥�
Those words crushed and shamed me. I was 15 years old, and they made me feel like making art was a waste of time and worse, that sharing my feelings was dangerous.
Too often, the world reserves the arts for the gifted. By the time kids reach their early teens, they aren鈥檛 encouraged to draw, sing, or dance unless they have displayed a special talent and could become an accomplished musician or artist. Mood boards and collaging? Better to direct that time and energy to something more useful like homework, parents might think.
But creating art has a significant impact on the brain. finds that the process of making art activates the prefrontal cortex, helping build executive-functioning skills such as planning and organizing. And there are other rewards to creative expression鈥攆or example, humming activates the vagus nerve, engaging the parasympathetic systems to make you feel good. Plus, you don鈥檛 have to be good at art to reap the benefits.
To this day, I create collages to work through and express my feelings, and I garden, write bad poetry, and sing in the shower when struggling with a particularly knotty problem at work. When someone judges what I鈥檝e created, I shrug it off. I now know that no one can tell me how to feel about my art.
顿辞苍鈥檛 believe you have to be artistic to make art.
Do make time for the arts every day. Hum, doodle, color, dance, garden, knit, and cook. Create enriched environments at home, work, and school to encourage playful exploration and heighten awareness of the sensory world around you. Creativity and the arts are not just nice to have; they are a necessity. Art creates culture. Culture creates community. And community creates humanity.
