Posts
Cave paintings are fascinating. The one above is from Chad and the other from Altamira (Spain).
What made these men who were dealing with surviving 24/24 to indulge for hours painting ceilings and walls? Was it about religion? The effects of alucinogenic drugs? You may want to read the book by Davd Whitley "Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief".
Who painted? Men? Women? Children? Who made those wonderful inks and pigments that lasted for centuries? I like to think that everybody could paint. Not only priests of some kind but anybody.
And why did they paint? I believe for two reasons: because they were human and because it was therapeutic. I mean, art is an intrinsic part of our mental set. Many of us just forget it and think that art is for kids or artists. We're all artists, we're all creative human beings.
Only sometimes we just don't know. Depressive people have often a tendency for not even trying. They give absurd reasons, like: "I was told when a child I was not artistic".
Who says so? Some long forgotten teacher in elementary school?
We're to blame. Nobody has the right to deprive you of this most basic human right: to express yourself. To create.
There are so many forms of artistic expression today. Painting, composing, writing, acting, sculpting, dancing, crafs, singing, playing. And also those allowed by the new technologies, which are countless: video, photo, music, etc. Try for yourself, pick up something that gives you pleasure, don't let anyone tell you what you should do or not. It's therapeutic, makes you better, improves communication, fights isolation. As the cave people had already found out.
If in doubt, look in the net for what Martha Beck has to say about art, therapy and depression. She wrote some good piece of advice.
The bottom line is: We're human, therefore we create.
