Episode 3: The Importance of Making Art

In this episode,

Lizzie examines the role art plays in her life, from self-expression to interpersonal connection, and how art therapy benefits child development. Dive in now for a little inspiration to embrace your inner child and get your creativity flowing again.

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Post-pod questions to consider

What is your preferred form of art? What role does it play in your life?

Episode Transcript

Hey, you're listening to Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I'm going to talk about why we should all make art, which you know, okay, sure. Lizzie, impose your views on all of us, and yes, yes, I will. Thank you. Thank you so much for asking. I will impose my view on all of you, but art has been around as long as people from cave drawings to progressively impressive architecture to modern day masterpieces. People in art are in a symbiotic relationship. 

They need each other to survive and benefit from each other. Without people, there's no art. And without art, there's no people just kidding. I've seen plenty of raccoons and pigs and, and elephants doing paintings, and you know, we're not the only creatures who make art, and I think that's something to be noted. But anyway, you know, it is an important part of humanity to do, to make art, to be around art. 

It's been around and around it goes. So art is really meaningful to me personally. After my mom died, I felt like art leaked out of me, like acid in an overused battery. I was pretty proud of that. But basically I was pretty down, you know, I was an overused battery and I was just leaking out art, and I drew these colorful animals. So, you know, cats, dogs, lions, elephants, bears, and bright, bright colors, yellows, blues, greens, purples, reds, you name it. 
And you know, over the past decade, I've, I've drawn hundreds of these animals, which is a lot. I'm not even exaggerating. Like I've drawn hundreds. That's, that's a lot. But at first, at first glimpse, they might just look like a drawing to you. They might just look like someone drew something and, you know, whatever. But for me, at least back then, it was a way for me to connect to people when I was grieving. 

I would draw people their favorite animal using their favorite colors. And I felt like it was a way for me to contribute colorful hope in a time of dark and muted despair. Yeah, I liked that too. I'm gonna say it one more time. It, it, it gave me, it gave me a chance to give colorful hope in a time of dark and muted despair. And it was kind of my way of like spreading joy to other people. And it was a way of seeking connection without actually necessarily saying that's what I needed. 

Or, and I know, I know you should express your needs verbally, but sometimes when you're grieving, you just want that connection. And it's nice. It was nice for me to be able to have that connection with people through my art. 

And knowing that I had given someone a drawing kind of made me feel connected to them. Like they had a piece of me. And I know, I know, even if they threw the art away, I still felt like the, the fact of me giving them this art was meaningful to me in a way and helped me kind of get, get over my grief. And I, and I know that an antidote to grief is connection. And so my art was really helping me through grieving. So art is important, and I think art's important as a kid, especially when I was a child therapist, I would use a lot of my sessions with kids would be making art session after session. 
They'd just make art and more art and more art. And some, some people might wonder why they're, why I had them do that, or, or think it's just, oh, they're just doing arts and graphs. 

But it actually, art uses a lot of skills, so it takes a lot of impulse control. You have to know when to start a line, when to finish a line. You have to know when to stop coloring, when to start coloring. That's all impulse control. And it also takes frustration tolerance. If you mess, mess up in quotation marks, if you make something you didn't mean to make, how do you deal with that? What do you do with that? How do you deal with that frustration of it not turning out how you wanted, you know? 

And it, it's also really good for sensory input. You know, I'd had kids finger paint and stuff, and, and that that input was helping their nervous system regulate that was helping them get through trauma and art was really good for their self-expression. And, you know, being able to like, like I had done, express themselves without words. 

So art isn't just art. Art is doing all these skills. And I, my hope was that my clients would eventually learn that even if they made mistakes with their art, there was something beautiful about the process of making the art. And there was something beautiful about the art, even though it wasn't perfect. And I just really wanted to stress that everybody, no one is perfect, but imperfections are beautiful in their own way. 

Okay. That was cheesy, but it's, it's, it's kind of how I feel. I do feel that imperfections are kind of beautiful in their own way. Like something that's imperfect is more intriguing visually than something that is perfect. And I just think that's a really important thing for everybody to think about. And then another time art was important to me is I kind of used art as a way to rebel, which I know also kind of a cliche, but basically when I was in high school, it was my senior year of high school and I was in art class and my teacher was like, follow the directions. And I would always like kind of follow the directions, but maybe use the wrong color scheme or maybe just kind of be generally a pain for him. And he told me that I was like a wild stallion and that I needed to work on containment and discipline. 

And then I drew pictures of horses for the rest of that year. No, I'm just kidding. But that would've been the most, that would've been so amazing if he was like, your art's, like a wild stallion. And I was like, alright, I'll just draw stallions the whole time. I would've, that would've been a good joke for me. But no, but I, I actually kind of take pride in my art being like a wild stallion. I think that's maybe better than being a tamed horse in some ways. And I don't know, I think art as a rebellion is a healthy way to express rebellion. 

So I was going through some stuff back then, and it was nice for me to have an outlet to express rebellion, but not, you know, get sent to the principal or whatever. So basically art is important. Art is important. I'll say it one more time. Art is important and it helped me through grief. It helps clients cope with their stress and trauma. It's a way for rebellion that feels safe. 

And for those reasons and other reasons, I believe that everyone should give it a shot. I believe everyone should make art. I want people to make the worst drawing they've ever seen. And I want them to make this drawing and only realize later that that worst drawing came from their mind. That that worst drawing is a piece of them and deserves to exist. Whether it's beautiful in their eyes or not, because even bad drawings have their purpose. 

And I know not everybody can draw sometimes due to disabilities or whatever. And so I think that I encourage people who can't draw to make art in any way that they can. Art can just be a fun conversation, like improv or something. Or it can be music, it can be thinking outside the box, whatever art means to you, I encourage you to do it. And you are meant to be the one that does that art. And I think that's cool. Like, someone might draw the same exact thing, but it's not gonna be the same exact drawing because different people did it. 

So I think that's pretty cool. And I think, yeah, everyone go out there and get some art. Get your art on, get your art on. Well, thanks to everyone for listening to this episode. I've inspired myself, so I'm gonna go make some art now. Have a good night.