The Importance of Experiential Art
Art has helped me bridge a connection that is vital for me: my body and creativity. Using physical objects to express my thoughts, feelings, and to work through things of which I am not entirely conscious has been life-changing. I could choose to create digitized images, even add sound, but that only engages my mind. My brain interacting with a computer. That is not enough. I have spent years in my head.
When I began drawing in therapy in 2023, it fulfilled a need I was craving. I was craving a way to use my body to create. Writing about my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and reflections has been transformative, but it was not enough since it still required words and kept me in my head. I needed to use my body to go beyond words.
I need to engage my body physically and kinesthetically. And drawing has met that need, especially using pencils. My relationship with paper (or whatever structure) is intimate while drawing. I can feel my movements and the contact between pencil and paper. I have to modulate pressure, make turns, and marks which are so dependent on my ability to control that pencil and sense its contact with the page. The physicality of holding the pencil, manipulating it, feeling it’s direction, modulating pressure and speed are integral to that expression.
The faster I draw, the messier it is, but it also allows me to bypass conscious thinking. If I draw fast enough then I don’t plan. I just feel my way through. I have created some things I feel very attached to doing this.
I have reached a point where I can balance that part of me which cannot speak, that comes in feelings I cannot label, with ideas of how to show my internal states. The drawing process in this way slows me down. I am purposefully using that energy, those feelings, those internal states to guide my body to create what I want to communicate not only to others, but more importantly, to myself. Drawing is a mindful reconnection, a showing of what is inside through tactile means. It is a way for me to better understand who I am, what I am really feeling, and work things out. This process has been the most important thing I have done in my life. It brings a release through focused intention in a kinesthetic relationship between me body and my creations. It is the only thing that brings me unadulterated peace.
