Arts with the Brain in Mind
Chapter 3
In this chapter, Eric Jensen discusses many aspects of the benefits of the visual arts on the brain. Art creation includes many categories and disciplines including theater work, lighting, scenery, film-making, as well as painting and photography and drawing. It is a huge field, which I never realized, and has been around for over a million years. The history of art-making does create a stronger case for the need to have it, although again, isn’t it obvious that it is essential for organizing ideas, for understanding the use and need for space, for documentation of life experiences. It is, as he said, “a visual sketchpad for thinking”, or as Picasso wrote, “Painting is another way of keeping a diary.” I know that making art is not exactly my strong suit, but I will still try to create a picture to understand how to set up a room with furniture, for example, or I will document my life by taking photographs with my phone, such a great and easy pleasure now, even without talent or expertise. In other words, it does absolutely confirm one’s need or “urge” to draw.
Jensen says, “Artmaking is the realization of our intuition in the physical world.” He means that creating art is not a passive process, because our eyes see the world, and then register what we see. That is not the end of the process though, because after we have noticed and registered what we see, we interpret it and and it gets into a routine of back and forth input and export and re-ordering. It is not a passive process because you can see things in different ways, and make choices in your brain and judgments about how you interpret what you see. For example, a cube can be seen in several ways. This develops a bias about how you see the world and helps with demonstrating that process of thinking. The parts of the brain that are involved in mediating emotional responses, and creating bias about art, include the thalamus, amygdala and reward pathway from the top of the brain stem through to the ventral frontal lobes.
There are many correlations with visual arts and higher college board scores. This shows the connection with cognition. As is the case with music studies, visual arts develop a sense of focus and discipline, as it takes time, patience, and grit to complete a piece of artwork. It also fosters a strong work ethic and teamwork, just like music creation. A student said, “When we do art, we represent what we want to see, when we do science, we represent what someone else wants us to see.” This helps with feelings, emotions, complex situations that need to be processed, and students can benefit in all ways by showing emotions and telling stories through their art.
This reminded me of the famous artist, Mark Bradford, who learned how to create art using pieces of paper that he needed for hair styling. He has recently become a multi-millionaire, but has re-vitalized and put a great deal of his money into his old neighbourhood. His art shows how he has processed his difficult childhood, how he has dealt with problems in his neighbourhood, such as racism, police brutality, and homophobia. Clearly, Mark was a gifted individual, and even without formal training, he was able to accomplish so much sharing his life story and advocating for a better world using his art. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/artist-mark-bradford-the-60-minutes-interview-2019-05-
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There are multiple reasons art and artmaking should be a part of every curriculum. It has been shown that autistic children often see the world through pictures, and some have a highly developed sense of spatial understanding, including a natural ability to draw. There have been studies done in underperforming schools that show that introducing art and artistic projects for learning have helped with motivation and engagement. The research shows that the visual arts encourage limitless avenues for imagination, help in self-identity, multiple ways to think, learn and create, as well as a “deepened sense of faith and mystery of life.” With so many jobs becoming automated, the arts are the way of the future, as ways of thinking and creativity will become and already are in the greatest need. Jensen says, which I agree, “The most valued skills, the talents in highest demand in this new century will be creativity, imagination and emotional expression.”
