# data[].attributes.body
I chose to read Sharif Bey's "Seeking and Collecting at Home: Sharing Personal Histories in the Artroom". My key takeaway was that if art teachers give students projects where they can share pieces of their own experiences then all students will grow from learning about one another and themselves. I also found this article very interesting, as it intersects with my own art making. I am also very interested in the objects people collect in their homes and work spaces.

# data[].attributes.body
I chose to read "When is creativity?" There was a quote that stuck out to me and it was "In self-directed learning, the teacher's role shifts from instructor to facilitator, living resource, and guide. Teachers respond to students' needs with encouragement, challenge, and relevant connections to the art world." This shows a shift from teacher directed to student directed classrooms and what that looks like in the art classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
Article that includes a brief history of Kusama's work as well as well as an in-depth look at what it is like to enter her infinity rooms. I like this article because the author talks about how she feels when she enters each room, whether that be overwhelmed or soothed. It is helpful to see it through someone else's eyes and understand their emotional reaction to each room.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Is Yayoi Kusama's new participatory-art exhibit about seeking profound experiences-or posting selfies?

Well before the Yayoi Kusama show opened in Washington, D.C., I heard from total strangers that I would not be able to get in. I heard about the lines, the waits, the tickets that would be released in batches every Monday at noon, the need to make arrangements now now now. The craze was on, though the exhibition was still more than a month away. "Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors" was starting its multicity tour at the Hirshhorn Museum. The circus was coming to town.

Back in January, I knew that this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see those half-dozen mirrored rooms-those infinite dreamworlds for one, created by Yayoi Kusama, who is 88 and lives by choice in a mental hospital in Japan-needed to be on my art bucket list.

Listen to the audio version of this article: Feature stories, read aloud: download the Audm app for your iPhone.

As I look over my ever-growing list, I see that it is chock-full of certain kinds of art-site-specific art, participatory art, relational art, land art, art that is hard to get to or hard to get into. Art that I've been told I absolutely, positively must experience in person before I die. Art that I can see only alone or in a small group. Art that will bring out in me an exquisite existential alertness. Art that I will complete by simply being present- art that without me is nothing.

Much of the art on my list is designed to involve the observer in ways that no mere gallery-going ever could-and indeed makes the blockbuster exhibitions of the 20th century (Picasso, King Tut, the treasure houses of Britain) seem quaint. Yes, the long lines are still part of the experience, but new elements have been added. Cameras are often allowed, which opens the door to Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media. The visitor's encounter is, in many cases, time-limited. Most important, many of the works on my bucket list invite the spectator to engage more personally with the art.

What's that you say? You don't have an art bucket list? Well, you can borrow mine. First, though, I should warn you that you have already missed many of the unmissable experiences I have had on my list.
The art on my bucket list is designed to involve observers in ways that no mere gallery-going ever could.
Take New York alone. Kara Walker's A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, a giant sphinx made of sugar, topped with a mammy head, is no longer at the Domino Sugar refinery on the East River (which has since been demolished). You can no longer see Cate Blanchett's dramatic recitations of various art manifestos at the Park Avenue Armory. (However, her performance can now be seen as a movie, Manifesto.) You can no longer pay your respects, at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue, to Sophie Calle's dead mother by watching an 11-minute video of her death. Marina Abramović, the performance artist, is no longer available to sit with you at MoMA. You missed staying dry (or getting wet) in the Rain Room while MoMA had it. (Good news, though: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently acquired it for its permanent collection, so you might have another chance.) You cannot float nude in salt water at Manhattan's New Museum in an "Experience" designed by Carsten Höller. Rirkrit Tiravanija isn't making Thai curry for visitors at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea or at MoMA anymore. The chance to walk through Christo and Jeanne-Claude's orange Gates in Central Park has long since passed. Sigh.

But that's half the fun! The fact that some folks have managed to make the scene while others get left out in the cold is integral to the excitement of participatory art. The thrill is akin to exotic travel, or getting to see Hamilton. Because not everyone who wants the experience actually gets the experience, these works, even if their intentions and messages are democratic, tend to become exclusive affairs. As the art historian Claire Bishop notes in Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, one paradox of this sort of participatory work "is that in intensifying convivial relations for a small group of people ... it produces greater exclusivity vis-à-vis the general public."

But cheer up, general public! Plenty of other can't-miss art experiences aren't going anywhere. I'm thinking of land art and site-specific art. Robert Smithson, for instance, created Spiral Jetty (1970) on the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, by arranging large rocks in a huge spiral. Michael Heizer made Double Negative (1969-70) near Overton, Nevada, by cutting two huge trenches into a mesa there. Walter De Maria composed The Lightning Field (1977) in the high desert of New Mexico by planting a vast field of 400 tall, lightning-attracting poles in a grid pattern. For the people who manage to make these treks, the dividend is not only the awesome sense of landscape transformed into art but also the keen realization that you and your journey are part of it.

If you can't reach those places, don't worry. There are other site-specific works that occupy whole rooms (De Maria's Earth Room in New York), buildings (the Rothko Chapel in Houston), islands (the Benesse Art Site in Japan dominates Naoshima, in the Seto Inland Sea), and towns. For instance, much of Marfa, Texas, is devoted to the minimalist art of Donald Judd (known for his aluminum-and-concrete boxes), Carl Andre (known for his metal floor tiles, which visitors are allowed to walk on), and Dan Flavin (known for his arrays of fluorescent bulbs). Like old World's Fair sites, these places and works are not going anywhere; you just have to get yourself to them. And keep in mind that the more remote they are, the more bucket-list-worthy they are, too.

If there is a poster artist for the current participatory-art craze, it has got to be Yayoi Kusama, whose exhibits-especially her Infinity Mirror rooms-have drawn record crowds around the world for the past few years. In her case, the challenge is not so much getting to the show, but getting into the show, and then getting into each individual room in the show. After you get your prized time slot-and good luck with that-you must wait your turn in not just one line but six. Most of the Infinity Mirror rooms can fit two or three people, and each has its own line to stand in.

Luckily, as with any good amusement park, there are, along with the main rides, plenty of other entertainments. At the Kusama show, the side attractions amount to a more conventional museum experience: a short course in Kusama's early obsessional work-her repetitive nets, polka dots, and phalluses. You will learn that it was by wrestling with her mental illness and her compulsion to spread those forms on every surface-walls, floors, furniture-that Kusama began to lay the groundwork for the Infinity Mirror rooms.

Kusama's Infinity Nets, a series of large paintings that she began in 1958, are canvases entirely covered with beautiful, repetitive loops and waves of paint that give the impression of a rippled oceanic surface that could go on and on, into infinity. (When Kusama first made them, she was compared to Jackson Pollock.) Then come the dots. Dots mean Kusama and Kusama means dots. But long before there was the circuslike Kusama we know today, her dots had a serious side. She discovered that she (like all of us) was "one of the dots among the millions of dots in the universe," and decided to use them to evoke individual disintegration and cosmic unity. "Polka dots," she has said, "are a way to infinity."

Around 1961, Kusama's two-dimensional obsessions began to overflow into three dimensions, as she made soft tubes out of cloth-first just plain white cloth, then striped or polka-dotted-and stuffed them like sausages. She called these soft phallic objects "Accumulations." En route to the Infinity Mirror rooms, you'll encounter a few. On the floor of one darkened gallery is Violet Obsession (1994), a rowboat and oars covered, both inside and out, with cuddly purple phalluses. Nearby are two chairs from the mid-1960s, sprouting soft, bulging white phalluses. Extending through the length of one gallery is A Snake (1974), a long, silver serpentine form on the floor, bristling with baked-potato-like phalluses.

There's an embarrassment of phalluses, and that is the point. The phalluses were Kusama's way of turning fear into something funny. Mika Yoshitake, the curator of the exhibition, explains that when Kusama was a child, her mother, suspecting that Kusama's father was having an affair, had young Yayoi spy on the lovers and report back. This early vision of sex left her traumatized; she suffered hallucinations. Years later, as self-therapy, she began making soft phalluses and attaching them to furniture and floors. "By continuously reproducing the forms of things that terrify me," Kusama has said, "I am able to suppress the fear ... and lie down among them. That turns the frightening thing into something funny, something amusing."

These ridiculous objects, simultaneously comic and tragic, are the perfect warm-up act for the main show, the six Infinity Mirror rooms. The first room, Phalli's Field (1965/2016), is, if you'll excuse the expression, Kusama's seminal work, the bridge between the polka dots and the phalluses. It is also the bridge between Kusama's New York experiments of the '60s and her more recent mirrored works. The precursor to Phalli's Field had no mirrors. It was a carpet of soft phalluses on which she could lie and be photographed. But after growing weary of sewing thousands of stuffed phalluses, she happened on the brilliant idea of achieving repetition with mirrors.

A version of Phalli's Field was incorporated into Kusama's public performances. She lolled in the field of her fabric phalluses on 14th Street while a camera captured the scene. Kusama's work fit right in with the art events that were proliferating at the time-mostly one-off performances, part art and part theater, many of them involving nudity and paint, poetry and music, destruction and silence. They were called "Happenings." (The painter and performance-art pioneer Allan Kaprow came up with the term in the late 1950s.)

The idea was to liberate art from museum boundaries, to blur the line between art and nonart, and to take the result to the streets and to the people. Unscripted immediacy was key, yet sometimes a running camera was part of the performance, too. For Meat Joy (1964), for instance, Carolee Schneemann and other participants rolled around on an assortment of raw fish, sausages, chickens, wet paint, paper scraps, transparent plastic; the whole thing was filmed.

Back in the '60s, Kusama was not as famous as, say, Andy Warhol. But by the end of the decade, she had everything in place for the wildly popular experience we have now-the dots, the phalluses, the mirrors, the rooms.

Let me immerse you in my immersive experience-not that it's any substitute for being there yourself. Before we start, I should tell you that your experience will certainly be different from mine; I was lucky enough to go during a press opening, so I didn't have to stand in any lines, I got to enter each room alone, and I was granted not just 20 to 30 seconds, but a full minute!

An attendant waved me into the mirrored room that is Phalli's Field. As I walked down a short plank leading to the edge of what looked like an endless pasture of red-and-white polka-dotted phalluses, the attendant shut the door behind me. For a second, as I became aware of myself in the mirrors, I had the sensation of being in a department store's changing room. But I had choices to make, and quickly. I could stand there and confront myself in this field of phalluses, or perhaps I could try to cancel myself out of the space by ducking. Neither felt right. I knelt on the little dock and regarded myself at roughly the height of the blooming polka-dot things (mushrooms without caps!). I confronted myself many times over in many mirrors in this crazy landscape. Before the attendant came to usher me out, I snapped a picture or two on my cellphone, and did a quick video-pan around the place.
"Infinity Mirrors" offers the chance to capture the lonely existential experience of infinity and send it to others as a selfie.
My next stop was Love Forever, a room that is mirrored on both the inside and the outside-my chance to be a peeping Tom, or rather a peeping Yayoi, if only for a minute. This six-sided chamber-first constructed in 1966, in part as a protest against the Vietnam War-was then reconstructed in 1994, and seems to hark back to Kusama's childhood trauma. Instead of entering, you peer into it while another voyeur, catty-corner to you, can peer in at the same time. The room is radiant, and literally hot, because of the lights inside it. Although the view you have is abstract-an infinite hexagonal pattern of colored lights that reminded me of old Broadway-it also feels a bit dirty and illicit. You are aware of the reflection of your own eyes across the room and also of the eyes of whoever else is gazing into the box at the same time. It's embarrassing by design. The viewer is the voyeur, and the voyeur is you.

By now, as I moved on to The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), I had become aware that my awareness of myself was shifting with each room. In this one I was keenly alert to my size and scale. I had the sense of being alone in a city, where hiding is always a possibility. Because the world looked better without me in it, I ducked and took a selfie with no self in it. Shortly after I emerged, I could hear a recording of Kusama incanting words I couldn't decipher. She was reciting, in Japanese, her poem "A Manhattan Suicide Addict" (2007). The lines, once I read them in English, seemed fitting after my recent attempt at self-eradication:

The present never ends ...
I become a stone
Not in time eternal
But in the present that transpires

I was pushed out of my reverie by a jumble of gigantic spotted pink-and-black beach balls beckoning like carnival barkers toward the next Kusama ride. Dots Obsession-Love Transformed Into Dots, first made in 2007, was crammed with more beach balls. I quickly moved through this experience, which was as unethereal as you'll get from Kusama-Kusama silly. Kusama psychedelic. Kusama Lite.

Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009) was Kusama Heavy. Was she perhaps taking on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? With small lights hung low in the darkened and mirrored room, this work evokes the look and feel of toro nagashi, the ceremony in which paper lanterns are lit and floated down a river in the evening. I had the by-now familiar feeling of being small and absorbed in some vastness, where I knew no one but myself. This time the experience was exhilarating. I was on the dock of the bay of infinity. I had no urge to hide myself. I was only a silhouette anyway. I didn't want to leave, but my minute was up.

And so I walked beside a field of yellow-and-black polka-dotted tentacles and on to the very last Infinity Mirror room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016). I was conscious of the stark difference between what was above-a stormy sky, looming with dark and dangerous pumpkins-and what surrounded me at ground level: a field of happy, gleaming yellow pumpkins with black spots on them. Was I a faithful Linus shivering at night in the darkness, waiting for the Great Pumpkin? No. As I again viewed myself on the horizon line, I saw that I had become a bridge between two realms, up and down. I was an upright, rectilinear self in a world of orbs.
People who know that I have had the Kusama experience look at me as though I have been to Mecca.
With its surreal backdrop, the pumpkin room was, I noticed, perfect for selfies. Well, who was I not to take a picture? I snapped 10 or so, and because the pumpkins were even more photogenic without me, once again I tried to expunge myself from some of the photos by lying low. (I learned only after seeing the show that lying down is prohibited.) Then my time was up.

I left the show by way of The Obliteration Room, a large space where visitors can decompress. On the preview day, it was an almost all-white room with all-white ikea furniture. By the time the circus left D.C. in May, thousands of visitors had adorned every surface with the colorful sticker dots that were distributed there. The white had been vanquished by a riot of Wonder Bread spots. This place, the only one where viewers got to make their mark, was the most communal and relaxing and also, I have to say, the least existentially affecting.

People who know that I have had the Kusama experience look at me like someone who has been to Mecca. They ask, anxiously, whether it's worth it. Should they take extraordinary measures to get to this exhibit on its two-year-long tour? As I've thought about how to respond, I've also been puzzling over the peculiarities of our particular art moment: Why has the apprehension of art become so like theater? And why is Kusama, who never received as much attention in the 1960s as many of her contemporaries did, finally in the spotlight now?

I was given a one-word answer to that question-Instagram!-and surely that is right. The Kusama show has just about everything the Happenings once had-the chance to see something extraordinary, the chance to participate, and the chance to photograph (or be photographed). But the "Infinity Mirrors" exhibition has added one key ingredient to the mix-the chance to capture the lonely existential experience of infinity and send it to others in the form of a selfie. People-thousands of them (check out #Kusama and #InfiniteKusama)-Instagram themselves in the exhibit.

By offering up to the public the solo art experience that was once her own private world-a primal and personal space for looking and healing and thinking about one's own place in the cosmos-and then by also allowing selfies in it, Kusama has created the perfect art experience for the social-media age.

Her shows are crowded because, as many viewers will tell you, you really do have to see these works in person to appreciate them. No photograph, however good, can deliver that existential jolt of being there, seeing yourself repeated ad infinitum. At the same time, Instagram is helping to drive Kusama's popularity; it is the means by which people advertise to the world that they are among the precious few who have had this lonely experience of being one dot among millions. The visual proof has helped propel Kusama's work to the forefront of destination art in its latest form.

Of course, destination art isn't exactly new; the frisson that accompanies a firsthand encounter has always been an element of art appreciation. In the late 18th century, Europeans flocked to see panoramic paintings, thrilled to be immersed in a 360-degree experience. In the early 19th century, a walk through the Louvre or a tour of Italy became de rigueur for any cultured European. In 1913, the Armory Show, where Marcel Duchamp showed Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), was an essential art pilgrimage. From the 1930s to the 1950s, every city that exhibited Picasso's Guernica on its European and American tour drew crowds. By the 1990s-30 years after New York emerged as the Happenings capital, and some two decades after land art lured viewers farther afield- the new draw was destination architecture. Think of Bilbao, Spain.

Now the magnet has moved again. Museums and galleries are currently trying to attract visitors by engineering immersive environments and interactions. From Kusama on the grand end of the scale, offerings extend down to the circumscribed and understated: In "Sara Berman's Closet," at the Met, Maira Kalman, with her son, Alex, has re-created her mother's closet, holding mostly white clothing. Meanwhile, this summer the Guggenheim in New York is exhibiting Doug Wheeler's "PSAD Synthetic Desert III." Installed near the top of the Guggenheim's spiral, this small show-a "semi-anechoic chamber" filled with beautiful, sound-absorbing foam stalagmites and stalactites-promises visitors in small groups (with timed tickets) the experience of the silence of the desert.

Drawn, yet again, to the lure of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I went to see Wheeler's chamber. And I am happy I did, because I had an epiphany about exactly what sort of art moment we are in. Although I did not experience the sublime silence I was hoping for (I was actually overwhelmed by a pulsating ringing in my ears), I had an important encounter on my way out of the museum. I spied the stanchions that signal a wait-in-line-to-see experience. I stood and waited. For what? A toilet. It was a solid-gold toilet, titled America -the work of the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, installed in one of the museum's bathrooms. Visitors, after standing in line, can not only behold and admire the toilet, but also use it. "Its participatory nature, in which viewers are invited to make use of the fixture individually and privately," the museum's brochure notes, "allows for an experience of unprecedented intimacy with a work of art." Intimacy indeed.

I went in, took a picture of the gold toilet, sat down, and tried to get a selfie that included both me and the work of art. From the sink, after washing my hands, I got another picture of the gold toilet, alone. And I suddenly understood that, taken in the right spirit, America is not just a riff on Duchamp's infamous Fountain- a porcelain urinal signed with the name R. Mutt, which, by the way, is 100 years old this year. It is also a supreme example of relational aesthetics, whose core idea is that the give-and-take of a social situation can itself be a work of art. You donate pee, you take away a photo. What will your photo be? Your face as you sit on the gold toilet? Your contribution to the gold toilet? It's up to you! (I was told that one employee had been fired for standing on the toilet in an attempt to get a good selfie, which he then sent out to his friends.)

If you look around you, you'll see examples of relational aesthetics everywhere. Over the past few years, for instance, several museums have offered up Yoko Ono's Wish Tree, on which people can hang their wishes, written on little paper tags. Recently the Jewish Museum, in New York, hosted "Take Me (I'm Yours)," in which visitors were supposed to take whatever they wanted from the exhibition-plaster casts of coffee lids, ribbons with slogans, buttons, T-shirts, clips of film, vials of air.

In our trophy-getting, Instagramming, participatory era, the taking and posting of selfies has become an important and unintentional extension of relational aesthetics. Whether spectators are invited to take pictures or not (cellphones are not allowed, for instance, in Wheeler's silence chamber), many visitors now experience museums and galleries with a cellphone in hand and a Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook account at the ready. You take a picture, you post it for your friends, and they receive the favor, and do the same in return.

Indeed, some museums have started loosening up their rules about photography, on the theory that people are more inclined to come if they are allowed to take pictures. Regardless of the rules, though, viewers snap and viewers chat, and the resulting experience is hard for any museum to control or to script-which is, after all, a basic (and potentially unnerving) principle of participatory art.

Case in point: In its inaugural show last year, the Met Breuer included Felix Gonzalez-Torres's " Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)-a 175-pound pile of candy from which visitors were allowed to take a piece. Despite a sign on the wall telling viewers that photography was not allowed, the pile of candy inspired, as W magazine noted, pictures aplenty on Instagram. "The good ones are on the bottom!" read a caption that was hashtagged #GettinItIn; the picture showed a visitor plunging his hand to the bottom of the candy pile. Another Instagrammer wrote: "The Met Breuer giving out free candy on the 4th floor and other cool things that you should def go see"-a caption that yielded the comment "Omfg."

What those exuberant viewers might not have realized, though the wall text explained it, was that by taking a piece of candy they were taking part in a performance that refers to, among other things, the physical decline of the artist's partner, Ross Laycock, who died of complications from aids (as did Gonzalez-Torres). The weight of the pile of candy, at its outset, was Laycock's ideal weight, 175 pounds, before he got sick.

Will Kusama's exhibition-where photography is obviously welcome-suffer similar indignities? It already has. One visitor to All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins reportedly tripped over one of the gleaming pumpkins and damaged it while trying to capture a self-portrait in a mirror. What has become almost laughably clear is that Kusama's mirrored investigations into existentialism and infinity have become theaters of infinite narcissism.

But does it really matter? Narcissism, after all, is one of the inescapable ingredients of participatory art, which not only highlights the give-and-take involved in any art experience, but also calls attention to the power of the audience to complete, or complicate, or confound an artist's intention. Like Gonzalez-Torres's pile of candy, Kusama's works were created, at least in part, to deal with personal trauma, but they are also asking viewers to have their own experience. Surely Gonzalez-Torres knew that some visitors wouldn't be thinking about aids while sucking the pieces of candy they took from his pile, and surely Kusama knew that no one would experience her works as she did.

In fact, maybe the distance between the sorrow and the silliness is part of the point. I do wonder, though, what in the world Kusama, who doesn't have a cellphone and doesn't do Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram, would make of the circus that is "Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors." What would she make of spectators so busy trying for the perfect selfie that they fail to feel any sense of existential angst or joy? I have a suspicion that she might smile.

Although you may have missed your shot to see the exhibit in Washington, D.C., Kusama will be coming soon to a city that might be somewhere near you: Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, Cleveland, and Atlanta. If you ask me, I would say go ahead and put it on your art bucket list. Why miss out on the chance, before you die, to wander through fields of phalluses and polka dots and watch yourself contemplate your own insignificance in the universe? The experience is well worth it, if only to get an intimation of where every bucket list points-to the finitude of your existence in this infinite cosmos. You wait in line, you get your turn, you look around in awe, you snap a few pictures, and then, like everyone else, you are escorted out.

Well, that's life. It may look infinite, but you are not. You are just a dot, there and then not.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
installation view of infinity mirror room

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
paradox of this sort of participatory work

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Is Yayoi Kusama's new participatory-art exhibit about seeking profound experiences-or posting selfies?

# data[].attributes.body
Yayoi Kusama's "Aftermath of Obliteration" has been directly connected to Kusama's own experience and feelings about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. She was 16 years old when the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima so she remembers the events pretty vividly. In my research of "Aftermath of Obliteration" I thought it would be important to include some information about this important historical event. I liked this article because it gave a good over view of what led up to this event.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Causes, Impact & Lives Lost

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

# data[].attributes.headline
Artists Who Deal with Emotions in Their Work

# data[].attributes.subject
Artists Who Deal with Emotions in Their Work

# data[].attributes.body
Anne Drew Potter “The Captain’s Congress” Bullying and Victimization

Lia Cook “Tracts Past” Intimacy

Mariko Kusumoto “Kodomobeya (Daughter’s Room)” Familial Love

Gustav Klimt “The Kiss” Romantic Love

Pablo Picasso “Guernica” Sadness, Loss

Georgia O’Keefe “The Lake” Calm

Edward Munch “The Scream” Anxiety

# data[].attributes.body
One thing that I think that would be interesting to incorporate into this unit is some information about artists throughout history who used art as a type of therapy for their mental illness. Some examples of these are Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Bernard Buffet, and Bryan Charnley.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Language: English | German

Abstract

Objective: Artwork and psychiatric disorders are often linked. Accomplished artists with psychiatric disorders express themselves and their emotional distress through their works, and art therapists use the visual arts to help clients understand their problems and cope with them. There have been a number of psychiatric patients with no previous art training who produced artwork that many consider museum-worthy (Art Brut, or Outsider Art.) For the past two years, I have used artwork in another way: to better understand my clients and their psychiatric disorders.

Methods: Presented here are paintings I have made about the mental illness experience of some of my clients, all well known to me through their therapy. It is a form of visual psychodrama, in which I reverse roles with the client through the paintings. My goal has been to experience the stresses felt by my clients so that I can understand them better.

Results: The paintings have served as a point of embarkation for therapy sessions, as a means of clarifying a client's experience, and as a way to show clients that their therapist is attending to what they say. Countertransference undoubtedly plays a role in my choice of clients and their portrayals, but the intent is to help me better understand the clients' experiences.

Included here are images of some of these paintings with a short psychiatric history of the client about whom they were made. Accompanying each one are responses from the clients upon viewing "their" paintings, and a discussion of the client's psychiatric disorder.

Conclusions: Making these paintings has helped me understand better the feelings of isolation, rejection, loss, and alienation that many of my clients experience every day. In turn, they tell me that viewing the paintings is an intense experience for them as well. As an outsider artist, I must leave it to the viewer to determine whether or not these paintings qualify as "art."

Keywords: art, Art Brut, Outsider Art, psychotherapy, painting, mental illness

Abstract

Ziel: Bildende Kunst und psychische Erkrankungen sind häufig miteinander verknüpft. Erfahrene Künstler mit psychischen Erkrankungen äußern oft sich selbst und ihre emotionale Notlage durch ihre Werke, und Kunsttherapeuten verwenden die bildende Kunst, um Patienten zu helfen, ihre Probleme zu verstehen und mit ihnen besser umzugehen. Es gab eine Reihe von psychiatrischen Patienten ohne vorherige Ausbildung, die Kunst produzierten, die man als museumswürdig betrachten kann (Art Brut, Außenseiter-Kunst). In den letzten zwei Jahren habe ich die Kunst in einer anderen Art und Weise verwendet: nämlich, um meine Patienten und ihre psychischen Erkrankungen besser zu verstehen.

Methoden: Die hier vorgestellten Gemälde habe ich über die Erfahrungen mit der psychischen Krankheit einiger meiner Patienten gemalt, die ich aus ihren Therapien gut kenne. Ich sehe das als eine Form des visuellen Psychodramas, indem ich durch die Bilder meine Rolle mit den Patienten tausche. Mein Ziel ist es, meine Patienten dadurch besser verstehen zu können.

Ergebnisse: Die Bilder dienten als Ausgangspunkt für die Therapie, als ein Mittel zur Klärung des Erlebens des Patienten und als ein Weg, Patienten zu zeigen, dass ihre Therapeuten an dem, was sie sagen, auch wirklich Anteil nehmen. Gegenübertragung spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei meiner Wahl der Patienten und ihrer Beschreibungen, aber die wichtigste Absicht ist es, mir zu helfen, sie besser zu verstehen.

Dargestellt sind einige dieser Bilder mit einer kurzen Geschichte der psychiatrischen Patienten. Daneben sind dann jeweils die Reaktionen der Patienten auf "ihre" Bilder, und eine Diskussion über die psychische Störung der jeweiligen Patienten.

Schlussfolgerungen: Das Malen dieser Bilder hat mir geholfen, die Gefühle der Isolation, der Ablehnung, des Verlust und der Entfremdung, die viele meiner Patienten jeden Tag erleben, besser zu verstehen. Dazu kommt noch, sagen mir viele der Patienten, dass das Betrachten der Bilder eine intensive Erfahrung für sie ist. Als Außenseiter-Künstler muss ich es dem Betrachter überlassen, ob diese Bilder als "Kunst" angesehen werden.

Introduction

The thoughts, beliefs, values, and emotions of artists are inescapably represented in their work - and on some occasions, intentionally depicted. Three of the more familiar connections between art and the functions of the mind are the ways in which artists express their own thoughts, feelings, and mental distress in their paintings; the use of art to help individuals with mental disorders; and the occasional emergence of a person with mental illness, untrained as an artist, who proves to have a unique artistic vision.

Several notable artists with psychiatric disorders have expressed their thoughts and moods in their artwork. Mark Rothko, Edvard Munch, and Bernard Buffet stated that their artwork reflected their depressed mood. Art historians and writers have interpreted the paintings of some artists (including Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Jackson Pollock) as showing evidence of a psychiatric disorder [ 1].

Psychotherapy clients are often at a loss to describe how they feel. The discipline of art therapy is devoted to helping individuals express themselves without the need for language or logic; their lack of artistic skill or training is no barrier to self-expression [ 2].

A few individuals with mental disorders have produced works that have gained the attention of artists, art dealers, art historians, collectors, and curators. Jean Dubuffet called their work "Art Brut," ("rough art," or "coarse art") [ 3]. Roger Cardinal later defined a category he called "Outsider Art," which included Art Brut and also the work of folk artists, primitive artists, and untrained artists without mental illness who were indifferent to the prevailing culture. Outsider artists, as defined by Cardinal, are not influenced by the art establishment, and are free of the restraining conventions of traditional art [ 4].

I have found another intersection of art and the mind: artwork produced by the psychotherapist with the emotional experience of the client as the subject. For the last two years, I have been making paintings depicting the depression, mania, psychosis, and compulsions of my clients. The paintings have become part of the bond between us, and are integrated into our psychotherapy. My initial purpose was to enter into the clients' world of mental illness to help me understand it better. The paintings have done that, and more - they have helped the clients by making tangible their intangible experiences.

This paper explores the intersection of art and the functions of the mind, and concludes with a discussion of the paintings I have made.

Artists with mental illness

In 1792, Francisco Goya (1746-1828) fell desperately ill with a fever and mental confusion; he may have had encephalitis. Upon physical recovery, he still suffered with episodes of hallucinosis, depressed mood, and emotional outbursts. Goya then set about depicting mental illness and those who suffer with it in a series of etchings ("Los Proverbios" or "Los Disparates," 1815 through 1824, Link 1). He never exhibited these etchings, and they were not published until 40 years after his death.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), who had repeated bouts of depression, revealed his depressed mood in a number of canvases. These include:

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), had episodes of depression, episodes of expansive and frenetic mood, and episodes of hallucinations; he died by his own hand. His physicians blamed absinthe and a seizure disorder for his mental illness; he has been posthumously diagnosed with a variety of disorders, including bipolar disorder [ 5]. His mood swings, his recurring obsession with death, and his psychotic perceptions can be seen in many of his works.

Paintings and drawings describing his psychiatric hospitalizations include:

"Stone steps in the garden of St. Paul's Hospital at Saint-Rémy" ( Link 11)

"Vestibule of St. Paul's Hospital at Saint-Rémy" ( Link 12)

"Window of Vincent's studio in St. Paul's Hospital at Saint-Rémy" ( Link 13)

Evidence for depressed mood and obsession with death is found in the following works:

Evidence for hallucinations and delusions can be seen in these paintings:

Evidence for mania and mixed mania is seen in:

Several Post-Impressionists are known for expressing their mood disorders in their work. The best known single work is "The Scream" by the Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944), of which there are a number of versions ( Link 27). "The Scream" shows a desperate man, shrieking in his despair. Many of Munch's other paintings also express the depressed and hopeless mood that tormented him throughout his life, his obsession with death, and his overwhelming fears. These include:

The frenzied images of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) appear to reflect his inner turmoil. Alcohol dependent and never able to stay sober for long, constantly depressed and frequently suicidal, he died in a one-car crash. A film of him painting shows him working at a hectic pace; he appears to be expressing his internal chaos on the canvas before him ( Link 38). Examples include:

Bernard Buffet (1928-1999) suffered with depression, and often depicted himself in a depressed state in his paintings, including "Self portrait in the bathroom" ( Link 44); "Self portrait #4 1981" ( Link 45); and "La mort (Death)" ( Link 46; Link 47).

Bryan Charnley (1949-1991) lived with schizophrenia; his medication controlled most of his symptoms but limited his creativity. He deliberately stopped and started medication in order to fully experience his illness and to record it in his paintings ( Link 48). As with van Gogh, Charnley's self-portraits show his progression through psychosis ( Link 49), and like van Gogh, he died by his own hand.

Cézanne, Buffet, and Rothko suffered with depression, van Gogh with depression and mood swings, Munch and Pollock with depression and alcohol dependence, Charnley with schizophrenia. This raises the question of whether or not artists are more likely to be mentally ill than other people.

Artists, psychologists, and sociologists have weighed in on this topic for more than 200 years, without a resolution. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), the "Father of American Psychiatry", thought a connection between mental illness and artistic creativity was likely [ 6]. The Italian criminologist and psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), theorized that artistic genius was also a form of mental illness, publishing these ideas in his book "Genio e Follia" (Genius and Madness), in 1894 [ 7]. Arnold Ludwig has reported that highly creative individuals are twice as likely to have significant psychopathology as noncreative ones [ 8], although a connection with alcohol dependence was not apparent [ 9]. Ludwig has asserted that being mentally ill contributes to the creativity of the artist [ 10]. Kay Jamison has written extensively that the core elements of the "artistic temperament" as identical with the core elements of bipolar disorder [ 1].

There is even disagreement over the advisability of treating creative individuals with mental illness. Rothenberg asserted that individual with bipolar disorder are more creative than others, and advised caution in the use of treatments that could inhibit their creativity [ 13].

Artists depicting mental illness in their work

Charles Louis Lucien Muller (1815-1892) documented one of the seminal events in psychiatry, Philippe Pinel ordering the chains of the mentally ill inmates at the Bicêtre Asylum in Paris removed ( Link 51). A few years later, Pinel did the same for the inmates of La Salpêtrière, shown in an equally well-known painting by Tony Robert-Fleury (1838-1912) ( Link 52).

Jean-Etienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840), who succeeded Philippe Pinel at La Salpêtrière, illustrated his 1838 text Traité des maladies mentales considérées sous le rapport médical, hygiénique et médico-légal ( A treatise on mental disorders with consideration of their medical, health and forensic aspects) with dramatic etchings of mentally ill patients by the artist Ambroise Tardieu (1818-1879) ( Link 53, Link 54).

Charles Bell (1774-1842), born in Scotland, used his skill as an anatomist and an artist to make some of the finest surgical atlases of the day; he described the VII th cranial nerve palsy that carries his name. Bell sympathized with the condition of mentally ill patients, and made a number of etchings showing the degrading conditions in which they were kept in England ( Link 55).

Suicide has been depicted in many paintings, usually with a historical or literary perspective. The Biblical story of the suicide of Saul, who killed himself rather than suffer humiliation, was painted by Pieter Breughel the Elder (1525-1569) ( Link 58; Link 59). Botticelli (1445-1510) depicted the legend of Lucretia, who killed herself after having been raped by the king's son ( Link 60). Titian, Rembrandt, Veronese, and Raphael have also made paintings showing Lucretia's rape, her suicide, or the overthrow of the king that followed. Cleopatra's suicide using an asp has been painted by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666) ( Link 61), and by Jean André Rixens, Guido Reni, and Reginald Arthur. The suicides of Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's play have been painted by Joseph Wright (1734-1797) ( Link 62), and by Frederic Leighton and Johann Heinrich Füssli. The suicide of Socrates was the subject of a great painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), painted during the French Revolution, that acclaimed Socrates' choice of death with honor ( Link 63) - one of the themes of the Revolution. Edouard Manet (1832-1883) painted an unusual picture of a man in evening dress who has just shot himself in the abdomen and fallen onto his bed ( Link 64). Manet may have been despondent over the suicide of a friend and fellow painter [ 15].

Ric Hall and Ron Schmitt collaborate in pastels and have many works that reflect serious mental illness, including major depressive disorder ("Depression", 2001; Link 65); delusions ("Inner demons", 2002; Link 66), alcohol dependence and depression ("Awaiting Tomorrow", 2002; Link 66), opioid dependence ("Fascination with the Pill", 2003; Link 67), and imminent death ("When Sickness And Health Are Too Much", 2007; Link 68).

Art therapy

The first documentation of art as therapy was in the mid-19 th century, in Scotland [ 16], when asylum inmates were given art materials and encouraged to draw and paint. Since then, art therapy has evolved into a professional discipline with study at the Masters level leading to certification.

Art therapy is used with hospitalized patients with severe and persistent mental illness, inpatients with depression and anxiety disorders, and outpatients with any emotional disorder. Some addiction recovery programs use art therapy, as do programs for autistic children, incarcerated prisoners, and multi-lingual programs where verbal exchange between clients is limited ( Link 69).

Art brut and Outsider Art

The concept that the paintings, drawings, and constructions of individuals under treatment for mental illness might have artistic merit dates from the late 19 th century. Cesare Lombroso (cited above for his controversial theories on creativity and mental illness) collected the artwork of patients at the mental hospital he directed, and published a treatise on his collection, L'Arte Nei Pazzi ( The Art of the Insane), in 1880. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), one of the fathers of biological psychiatry, began a collection of drawings and paintings done by psychotic patients at the hospital of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, beginning around the turn of the 20 th century. When Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933) became the superintendent of the hospital, he expanded the collection, and in 1922 he published an account of it, Bildnerei der Geisteskranken ( Artistry of the Mentally Ill) [ 20]; the collection eventually contained 5000 items. At about the same time, in Switzerland, Walter Morgenthaler published Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler ( A Psychiatric Patient as Artist), describing the drawings of one of his patients, Adolf Wölfli.

Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), a talented but inconsistent painter ( Link 72) and sculptor ( Link 73), became intrigued with the concept of art produced by individuals with mental illness. After the end of World War II, Dubuffet sought out these untrained, socially marginalized, and emotionally troubled artists and began collecting and showing their work. Critics maintained that the works produced by these psychiatric patients were not art at all, but only technical productions; Dubuffet argued that the artwork spoke for itself, and was as fully "Art" as any work produced by trained artists, and especially notable because it was unaffected by the traditions of Western art, the influence of society, or any commercial interest. He named this genre "Art Brut," and organized the first public exhibition of it, "L'Art Brut Préféré aux Arts Culturels/Raw Art is Preferred to Cultural Art," in Paris in 1949 ( Link 74) [ 3]. (The collection is now housed in its own museum in Lausanne, Switzerland ( Link 75)).

Dubuffet's museum defines Art Brut as follows:

Les auteurs d'Art Brut sont des marginaux réfractaires au dressage éducatif et au conditionnement culturel, retranchés dans une position d'esprit rebelle à toute norme et à toute valeur collective. Ils ne veulent rien recevoir de la culture et ils ne veulent rien lui donner. Ils n'aspirent pas à communiquer, en tout cas pas selon les procédures marchandes et publicitaires propres au système de diffusion de l'art [ 21].

The creators of Art Brut are marginalized individuals who are resistant to the normative educational and cultural structure, who maintain an independent attitude in spite of societal norms and values. They want nothing from mainstream culture and have no interest in engaging in it. They do not wish to discuss their works, seek no publicity, and want nothing to do with the commercial aspects of art. (translation: TR)

In 1970, Roger Cardinal described as "Outsider Art" a category of artistic expression that included the work of individuals untrained in art, whose creations were spontaneous expressions of their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs - but who were not necessarily mental patients [ 4]. Outsider Art included Art Brut, folk art, primitive art, and other artwork outside of the cultural establishment. His book was viewed with skepticism by many, as in this book review by John Milner published in the art journal Leonardo: "If the author points out a land where original marvels await discovery, then he may have achieved a great deal. But he does not begin to show us how to go there or how to leave behind the culture that we know" [ 22].

Brut artists with mental illness include Adolf Wölfli, Martin Ramirez, Henry Darger, and Madge Gill.

Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) ( Link 76), spent his entire adult life in psychiatric institutions in Switzerland, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He produced some 25,000 sketches, drawings, collages, and other images exploring his delusions and fantasies, and sometimes gave them to visitors in exchange for cigarettes or small amounts of money. In his narrative, Wölfli re-created an imaginary autobiography beginning at birth and continuing far into the future [ 23].

Martin Ramirez (1895-1963) ( Link 77), spent most of his life in a psychiatric hospital in California, and was also diagnosed with schizophrenia; he used any available scrap of paper and any available implement that would make a mark for his pictures of trains, animals, and Madonnas [ 24].

Henry Darger (1892-1973) ( Link 78) received psychiatric treatment only briefly. He lived an isolated life, without friends or family, venturing out of his apartment only to go to work. After his death, his landlord opened his apartment, and discovered a massive quantity of drawings, paintings, songs, epistles, and a novel of more than 15,000 pages, which Darger had never shown to anyone [ 25].

Madge Gill (1882-1961) ( Link 79) was never treated as a psychiatric patient, but her behavior suggests both a thought disorder and a mood disorder, and in her later years, alcohol dependence. She made complex pen-and-ink drawings of herself and her daughter in ornate gowns, in response to guidance from a spirit she called "Myrninerest," ranging in size from post cards to 30 feet long (drawn on a piece of fabric.) She rarely sold any of them, maintaining that they belonged not to her, but to her spirit guide. After her death, thousands of them were found in her home, stacked in cupboards, and piled under the bed.

The work of Wölfli, Ramirez, Darger, and Gill have been the subject of many scholarly books and papers, and numerous exhibits have focused on them [ 26], [ 27]. A Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, Switzerland is devoted to Wölfli's work ( Link 80). The Milwaukee Museum of Art recently mounted an exhibition of Ramirez work ( Link 81), and the American Folk Museum has established the Henry Darger Study Center ( Link 82). Nearly all of Madge Gill's drawings are owned by the Borough of Newham, London, but are not being displayed; a few are in the Art Brut museum in Lausanne.

A good example of an Outsider artist with no apparent mental illness is the French postman, Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924). He picked up a stone on his postal route one day and brought it home. Each day he picked up more stones, and, intrigued by them, he began building a structure with them. Over the next 33 years, this became a passion (or an obsession); eventually, he brought along a wheelbarrow to carry his stones home. The flamboyant castle he created by cementing the stones together is now a French national landmark ( Link 83).

In 1976, at the age of 60, Howard Finster (1916-2001) ( Link 84), an ordained minister, received a vision commanding him to produce sacred art. He was not a mental patient; he had worked as a minister, engaged in his community, and raised a family. He had no training in art, and had never painted in his life. He said he received a a command to complete 5000 paintings glorifying the Word of God. He responded with over 16,000 works (and once completed 67 paintings in a single day). Most of these works are now on display at the museum he established for them in Summerville, Georgia ( Link 85). Although he accepted commissions (he painted album covers for the rock groups REM and Talking Heads), he remained focused on his spiritual calling - all his paintings are filled with religious images and Bible verses. He considered his commissioned album covers as part of his mission, since every person who purchased the band's album would also be exposed to his spiritual message.

Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964) ( Link 86), had a few drawing lessons in his youth, but was otherwise untrained; however, he was exposed to the work of contemporary artwork through several artists that he met, who encouraged him. He never received psychiatric treatment, although he had episodes of depression, and lived on the outskirts of society most of his life. His work clearly reflects the influence of Picasso, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Georges Braque, yet, he sought no professional recognition and painted strictly for himself.

The work of Franco Magnani (1934- ), the "memory artist," can also be considered Outsider Art. Magnani left his home village of Portito, Italy, when just a boy; he worked as a cook and a baker, eventually settling in San Francisco. Although he had no artistic training, he started painting scenes recalled from boyhood, which are remarkably accurate ( Link 87).

Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses, 1860-1961) ( Link 88), began painting in her 70s, without art instruction, and became famous for her scenes of rural life. She was called a "folk artist" in her time, indicating the coarse, plain style of her work; she can also be considered an Outsider artist.

James Ure, an untrained artist who lives with schizoaffective disorder, tells the story of his illness in paintings ("The colorful outside represents the dance of mania and the black, purple, center represents the 'black hole' of depression," Link 91), and sells prints over the internet. Ure is an example of an Outsider artist who wants to be noticed - most avoid public attention. The advent of internet publishing has made it much easier for Outsider artists to interact with the world, if they want to ( Link 92).

Greg Bottoms has written a fascinating book describing his search for Outsider artists in the American South. He describes Outsider Art in this way: "It is more often fuelled by passion, troubled psychology, extreme ideology, faith, despair, and the desperate need to be heard and seen that comes with cultural marginalization and mental unease ([ 29], p. 2)." Bottoms quotes David Fecho on Outsider artists: "All these folks lead very peripheral lives in terms of the normative social structures. They are driven by something outside of commercial success or acceptance.... They don't really care about the long-term viability of their art. Perfection of craft and vocation are not at all what drives then. What they care about is getting up every day and engaging with the materials and speaking through these materials about their lives what they mean in a grander scheme ([ 29], p. 7)."

Typically, Outsider artists paint for themselves, but not for fame or fortune. The Taiwanese artist, Hung Tung (1920-1987) ( Link 93), is an example of this; when the public became interested in buying his paintings, he retreated back to isolation and died in poverty, rather than sell his work. "At one time derided and believed insane for his obsession with painting, Hung was eventually heralded as a master," writes Victoria Y. Lu in the book, "Vernacular Visionaries." "Hung's death caused the market value of his surviving works to skyrocket and elevated his reputation as one of the most important artists of twentieth century Taiwan ([ 30], p. 93)." Similarly, when a wealthy art collector offered to buy all of Gaston Chaissac's paintings (he was penniless at the time), Chaissac turned him down, stating that he preferred his independence to wealth, and would rather have his paintings than money.

Most authors no longer find value in distinguishing between Brut artists and Outsider artists, generally preferring the latter, more inclusive term as more useful [ 36]. A more important distinction is that between Outsider Art and mainstream or establishment art. The differences lie primarily in the economics of art and the definition of mental illness in the culture of the artist - not with the art itself. The psychoanalyst Ernst Kris believed that the "artworks" of psychiatric patients were mere mechanical productions, characterized by crowded and repetitive images, psychotic symbols, delusional visions, and primitive technique [ 37]. It is true that Adolf Wölfli crammed his pictures with figures ("horror vacuui"), but so did Pieter Breughel ( Link 95) and Hieronymus Bosch ( Link 96). Hung Tung painted imaginary scenes, but so did Watteau ( Link 97) and Raphael ( Link 98). Howard Finster painted in response to a call from God, but so did Michaelangelo ( Link 99) and the anonymous monks who illuminated the Book of Hours ( Link 100). The works of John the Painter and James Ure may seem more like the work of preschool children than artists, but so do Matisse's cutouts ( Link 101) and the scribblings of Cy Twombly ( Link 102). In the light of these comparisons, Kris's criticisms appear to be based more on prevailing culture than on artistic merit.

The art of Vincent van Gogh forces us to reconsider how we categorize artists. Van Gogh spent many months in a psychiatric hospital, most likely with bipolar disorder and alcoholism, where he made many paintings with the encouragement of his brother Theo and the staff; perhaps this was an early form of art therapy, a mentally ill patient trying to find himself. He never sold a painting for more than a few sous, but this did not deter him from painting; he completed 900 paintings and 1100 drawings in just over 10 years, most of them in the last two years of his life, and he died a suicide; perhaps he should be considered a Brut artist. His artistic style differed from that of his contemporaries and was considered amateurish and clumsy by art dealers; however, many well-known artists, including Cézanne, Gauguin, and Manet, admired his work, so perhaps he should be considered an Outsider artist. Today, any of his paintings would sell for tens of millions of dollars, and he is considered a "master." In fact, van Gogh has been accorded the two ultimate accolades of an artist - art forgers have selected van Gogh as worthy of imitation ( Link 103), and his paintings have been stolen from prominent museums ( Link 104).

My paintings (all client names are pseudonyms)

The paintings I have made follow the tradition of Outsider Art. I have no formal art training nor have I attempted to sell any paintings. As with the Outsider artists discussed in this paper, my paintings are made for personal reasons - in my case, to understand more fully the emotional experiences of my clients. Some paintings depict a specific event in a client's life: a suicide attempt, a sexual assault, a physical beating, a moment in a therapy session. Some tell a more general story: the insidious creep of traumatic memories into consciousness, the feeling of panic with nowhere to run, the depths of depression, the hectic turmoil of mania. Some seek to evoke an abiding or overwhelming feeling: the uncontrollable mood swings of bipolar disorder, the intensity of depression, the joy of recovery from addiction.

These paintings are a form of role reversal in which the canvas is a stage and the image is a projection of what I feel in the role of the client. As I make the paintings, I place myself in the client's ego state and represent what I feel on the canvas. As a psychodrama therapist, I utilize role reversal techniques with clients in therapy every day; the paintings are a sort of graphical role reversal, which help me see the world from the point of view of the client. The technique of role reversal was introduced by J.L. Moreno, the creator of psychodrama therapy, which he described in this way:

...A meeting of twoEye to eyeFace to faceAnd when you are nearI will tear out your eyesAnd place them instead of mineAnd you will tear out my eyesAnd place them instead of yoursThen I will look at youWith your eyesAnd you will look at meWith mine... [ 38]

I show the paintings to clients as part of their therapy sessions, and then keep the paintings in the office, where the clients can see them again (or not), as they wish. I also show the paintings to other clients, and tell the story behind the paintings (without, of course, revealing the identity of the client about whom they were made.)

Clients have various responses to the images. In general, they express gratitude at having a painting made about them; they know that many hours are required to complete a painting, and they take it as an honor. With the first few paintings, the clients responded immediately with compliments; these statements were made out of politeness, and interfered with therapy. Since then, I show clients their painting for the first time during a session, and I ask them not to say anything at all right away. Their first comments now are about the experience and not about the "art". A common first statement is, "Yeah, that's what it's like," or "I know that feeling," or "You made this about me?" or "That's exactly what I feel like, but how could you know?" This gives us an opportunity to discuss the issues further in that session - and the next one, and the next.

When I first show a painting to a client, I check for accuracy, asking if I have interpreted and shown their story correctly; occasionally, clients want something added or changed. Since this process is about insight and understanding, not art, we discuss the best way to represent how they feel. For example, Talia felt that a bubble surrounding her ought to be added to the painting showing her isolating herself from the chaotic world in which she lives. Edith asked that a .22 caliber bullet be added to the rope, shards of glass, and blades attached to her painting, to more clearly represent her suicide attempts.

I often ask clients to bring their spouse or a family member with them when I first show them their painting, both for support and to build empathy. Significant others often lack a clear understanding of what it is like to have a mental disorder - naturally, they focus on how the mental disorder has affected them. I will ask the client, "Tell your husband what the experience shown here is all about." Using the painting as an external validation of their internal distress has helped some clients discuss their psychiatric disorders with their spouses and family members.

Clients often ask to "visit" their painting again at the end of a session, or bring their spouse or a family member to see it. I email a JPG of the picture to the client as well. They often ask to see the paintings made for other clients; they tend to make non-committal responses to paintings depicting issues not familiar to them ("uh-huh") and spend more time on those they understand; at times, they have strong reactions to stories that are much like their own. Hannah, who was sexually abused as a child, drew back on seeing and hearing about Benjy's painting ("How long would I have to spend in jail for molesting a child?"). At the subsequent visit four weeks later, she had no recollection of having seen the painting. Some clients react so strongly to their painting that they would rather not see it again. Karen said, "It's burned into my mind; I don't have to see it again." Larry said, "I want to burn that painting." On three occasions, I have had a client express a great deal of interest in a particular painting with a topic that is similar to their own story. Later, I introduced the two clients to each other client, and asked them to share the meanings of their paintings with each other. This has led to several supportive friendships between clients with similar stories.

Many of the images are frightening or depressing; after all, they express what I hear in therapy sessions, and clients do not often come to a therapist to talk about their joy and runs of good luck. Some pictures show dramatic moments, such as the moment when Larry, as a baby, was violently shaken by his abusive father. Some depict pervasive feelings, such as Carol's grief over the death of her children.

I do not imagine that I am the first therapist to use artwork in this way, but after an extensive literature search, I have been unable to find any papers discussing this use of artwork, in the medical literature, in the psychotherapy literature, or in popular literature. Surely, there have been many psychotherapists and psychiatrists who were also skilled painters, and there have certainly been many budding young artists who decided to become therapists or psychiatrists instead of professional artists - but I have been unable to find accounts of them painting with the purposes described here. The closest I have found are the paintings made by Jack Kevorkian (1928- ), the Michigan physician who advocates voluntary euthanasia; and the computer-generated art by the psychologist Don Tatro (1934-2004), drawn from his years as evaluating clients, victims, and perpetrators.

Kevorkian, who has never considered himself an artist, made a series of 18 paintings two decades ago, depicting the distress of some of his "patients." These paintings were reportedly lost in shipment and have never reappeared. Kevorkian subsequently painted another eight paintings; the originals are not on display, but reproductions of six of them are available for purchase, and can be seen at Link 105. They are quite striking, and are strongly influenced by the surrealists. One of his paintings was featured as the cover art for an album by the rock group Paegan Terrorism Tactics ( Link 106).

Tatro did not consider himself an artist, either; he was a forensic psychologist with a gift for graphic art. He created a series of computer-generated images, on view at Link 107, that describe mental illness, but without reference to particular clients. In Tatro's words: "Each is meant to depict one of the main mental disorders or, in their lesser manifestations, personality types. I have attached a little explanatory text to each image, briefly describing the kind of problem being depicted and how the image is intended to symbolize it" [ 31].

The following are images of a few of my paintings, each accompanied by a short clinical history and a DSM-IV diagnosis; I have completed 45 as of this writing. More can be found at Link 108.

Conclusion

I began painting two years ago with no purpose in mind other than to understand more completely the emotional experiences of my clients. Prior to that time, it had never occurred to me to put paint to canvas. Having had no training in painting or sculpture, I did not consider what I was doing as creating "art"; rather, I was seeking to represent an experience or a feeling. Only later did I begin to wonder what it was that I had created.

I began the study that led to this paper in 2007, and only then did I become aware of Outsider artists. These individuals create art for themselves, not for fame or profit or because their society compels them to. What their work lacks in polish and technique, it makes up for by being genuine and heartfelt. Outsider Art represents an unvarnished, direct representation of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and experiences of the artist.

On looking around my office at the forty or so paintings displayed there, a client asked how many I had sold. The thought of selling these paintings made me feel uncomfortable, even insulted. I explained to the client that the paintings are part of my relationship with my clients, and to sell one would feel like a violation of the bond between us.

My paintings, therefore, follow in the tradition of Outsider Art such as the work of Howard Finster, Hung Tung, Madge Gill, and Francois Cheval - work created without commercial intent, for personal reasons, using readily available materials, and without professional training. And that, I am proud to say, makes me an Outsider artist.

The insights I have gained into my client's conditions by representing them on canvas has been invaluable to me as a therapist. I encourage other therapists to become Outsider artists and make a similar exploration. You do not need art lessons or any particular degree of skill; if you don't know how to paint "the right way," there will be nothing to block your creativity or undermine your authenticity. Outsider artists blaze their own trail, and since no one has ever taken their exact path, the journey will be unique.

Notes

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Mr. Peter Frey of Vienna and New York City, who translated the abstract into German.

Grant support

This paper was written without grant support.

Conflicts of interest

None declared.

Copyright

International copyright to the images of the author's paintings, contained herein, is retained by the author.

References

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using artwork to understand the experience of mental illness: Mainstream artists and Outsider artists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Language: English | German Objective: Artwork and psychiatric disorders are often linked. Accomplished artists with psychiatric disorders express themselves and their emotional distress through their works, and art therapists use the visual arts to help clients understand their problems and cope with them.

# data[].attributes.body
Robotics Art

# data[].attributes.body
Performance Art, Photography, Sculpture, etc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All images © Janine Antoni. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

# data[].attributes.body
Sculpture, Photography, Mixed Media, etc.

# data[].attributes.body
Photography

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Arne Svenson is a fine art photographer living in New York City

# data[].attributes.body
In the article "Tell Me a Story- The Power of Narrative in the Practice of Teaching Art" Mary Jane Zander explores how using narrative rather than I.R.E or I.R.F. can both challenge students to explore and make them feel more comfortable in your classroom. She discusses various "narrative opportunities" in the art classroom, but the one that stood out to me most was the section on visual culture. I think that visual culture affects everyone, but not everyone is able to pick up on how and when it affects them. It is important for teachers to help students understand the types of messages they are bombarded with everyday due to visual culture. I also think it is important to teach students how to use visual culture to tell their own narratives because they can manipulate or change the meaning of visual culture with their work if they choose to do so.

# data[].attributes.body
Incorporating Science, Texhnology, Enginnering, and Math into the art classroom can help students learn that art making can encompass more than may originally think. This opens the door of art making for students. It also helps validate the importance of art curriculum as a tool to connect different disciplines.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
INTRODUCTION

While the demand for a strong STEM workforce is growing and is recognized by academic, non-profit, and government institutions alike, there are challenges that threaten our ability to recruit, train, and retain such a workforce in ways that are effective and sustainable and foster innovation. Educator-scientists are meeting some of these challenges by infusing creativity-by means of the arts-into the education and training of future scientists. Many are superficially aware of these efforts through familiarity with the STEAM acronym, a modification of the STEM acronym to include the Arts (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). When we think of integrating arts and science, the most obvious art form that comes to mind is the visual arts. After all, most scientists have had to generate diagrams to communicate their science effectively. At the same time, performance arts such as dance and theater also lend themselves to integration into science education and training. In this Perspectives article, we review the use of visual and performance arts in science education and their benefits in both K-12 and post-secondary education. We also discuss STEAM programs in science outreach and the development of professional scientists.

DISCUSSION

Visual, spatial, and graphical arts as STEAM

From our first cell diagram drawings in primary school to the advanced visualizations that illuminate our community's journals, visual literacy is an essential tool in learning and communicating biology. Historically, drawing was assumed to be part of the biology student's and professional's toolbox ( 1). Today's visual arts STEAM initiatives are the heirs of those learning traditions-many incorporate explicit notes of esthetics, visual literacy, and communication. These initiatives have wide-spanning benefits: broader access and inclusion in STEM, enhanced learning of scientific concepts, building technical skills that are underserved in the curriculum, and enhancing students' mastery of design and cross-disciplinary collaboration ( 2).

STEM disciplines, as both professions and practices, are functionally dependent on visual modes of problem solving and communication, including schematics, symbolic logic, scientific illustration, and photography ( 1, 3). STEAM projects recognize the value of art as not simply a vehicle for scientific content, but as a complementary contribution. For example, many STEAM projects recalibrate the typical relationship between science and illustration, resulting in images of scientific phenomena that mutually exalt STEM and artistic merit ( 4- 6). Similarly, the proliferation of STEAM scientific image contests speaks to the power of art as a pathway to attract participation and interest in STEM ( 7- 10).

Although scientific illustration is a familiar platform for STEAM, it is not the only model for productive scientific-artistic collaborations. Visual, spatial, and graphic arts have the potential to reveal science and culture in distinct ways that are complementary to our traditional ways of understanding science ( 2, 11). Fostered through artist residencies as well as individual initiatives, STEAM efforts are yielding visual and spatial art that turns a new lens on the structure of scientific work ( 2, 12, 13). For example, art can reinterpret scientific themes, providing us with new ways to look at our understanding of the natural universe-from finding new ways to visualize oceanic data that reveal the impact of climate change on marine life ( 14) to new points of view on the microscopic from artists shadowing scientists at the lab bench ( 15). Art can also make scientific thought and culture relevant to a broad audience. The arresting visual depiction of the intersection of synthetic biology with urban design and human reproduction ( 16) or of research life in the arctic provides a "hook," to both scientists and nonscientists, to pause, look closer, and reflect ( 16, 17). For these reasons, STEAM among scientists and visual/spatial artists has been particularly fruitful in three domains: helping science become accessible and inclusive; clarifying the meaning of scientific concepts and culture; and fostering collaborative works in which scientific and esthetic components are mutually enhanced ( 2).

Visual art STEAM projects in education similarly support all of these purposes within learning contexts. STEAM has shown great potential for making science (and science professions) accessible and relatable to students. STEAM learning is especially effective when students are cast in the role of artist and scientist rather than in that of audience. A successful template for STEAM-for-accessibility has been to first facilitate students' scientific participation or discovery, and then facilitate the students' reflection on their scientific experience through the creation of visual art-often a drawing or painting ( 18- 22). A common theme expressed across accounts of using visual arts activities to enhance scientific experiences is that students' enjoyment of the art creation makes the entire activity, including the scientific experience, relatable and fun, which is naturally a key aim of student science outreach ( 2, 20, 23, 24). It is likely that the drawing component of these STEAM activities yields cognitive benefits as well as creative ones and aids in making sense of both the physical world and abstract concepts ( 25- 27). Drawing fosters close observation, helps elicit relationships between function and form, and can serve as a model realm for problem-solving ( 1, 3, 27, 28). Manipulative visual arts such as sketching, photography, and origami have been proposed as effective cross-training for spatial intelligence, which is a crucial attribute of successful STEM professionals ( 29). In addition, there has been evidence that incorporating drawing activities into STEM learning helps students learn more quickly and deeply, in both K-12 and higher education settings ( 30, 24). STEAM as a scaffold for student meaning-making is generally a stated or implied goal of activities that introduce visual arts into science learning. However, this outcome is somewhat underserved by the typical analysis of scholarship within STEAM literature. Assessing these cognitive benefits of STEAM has the potential to be a significant growth area for our educational community.

Just as STEAM collaborations among scientists and artists combine art and science with a goal of mutual enhancement, STEAM education provides both STEM and arts students with enrichment that is often not available within their set course of study. This enrichment usually starts by simply scaffolding interdisciplinary collaborations and promoting a culture where science and art are given equal consideration ( 31). For example, in higher education, STEAM classes can be cross-listed for STEM and arts students. Projects might also involve artistic and functional criteria, ensuring epistemological cross-pollination toward a shared visual or sculptural project or prototype ( 32).

In such courses, it is often observed that STEM students relish the opportunity to expand into creative roles, undermining stereotypes of the quantitative scientist with no patience for esthetic considerations ( 32, 20). It has been argued that this points to an unmet need to include esthetics more explicitly in STEM education-certainly for students' own enrichment, and also to prepare them to succeed in professional pursuits wherein an attractive design is as valuable as technical proficiency ( 2, 33, 34).

Performing arts as STEAM

While the relationship between performing arts and STEM is less obvious than that of STEM and visual communication, we easily recognize the importance of performance skills in teaching, presenting, collaborating, and even learning itself, all key components of a scientific career. Initiatives that integrate STEM and performing arts sharpen communication skills that complement an individual's scientific training, and the interactive nature of performance makes for highly dynamic, social, and entertaining projects for science students, professionals, interdisciplinary teams, and nonscientists alike.

The significance of STEAM as outreach

STEAM has been capitalized on as an inspirational, motivational, and accessible means to support scientific outreach. It is important to note that STEAM is not solely intended for outreach. However, in practice, STEAM appeals to audiences who may not immediately identify with or relate to STEM.

There are numerous examples of initiatives integrating STEAM into outreach. Many of these programs are designed as hands-on experiential learning opportunities that promote and cultivate the value of interdisciplinary collaboration. In addition, these transformative outreach activities developed with STEAM concepts are often coupled with goals to help young students bridge their interests with career aspirations ( 44, 25). STEAM programs can benefit society by increasing public awareness of STEM and providing resources, guidance, and mentorship ( 45, 46). However, the purpose of STEAM outreach is not to funnel every possible student into a science career by repackaging science as indistinguishable from creative arts. STEAM outreach does indeed provide a means for students who readily identify with creative arts to explore an expansion of their interests into STEM; yet STEAM also provides a more general means for nonscientist citizens to engage with scientific concepts, questions, and narratives with a view to increased scientific literacy, awareness, potential action, and a more positive perception of STEM, which are worthy goals in themselves for the scientific community. It is of particular relevance that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is exploring the implications of integrating learning experiences in the humanities and arts with STEM (). Furthermore, the Cultural Programs of the National Academies of Sciences (CPNAS) hosts the D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER), a monthly discussion forum on art and science projects ().

The diversity of these STEAM-themed outreach programs could serve as a benchmark for innovation. Perhaps even more noteworthy is that many of these STEAM programs are grassroots efforts. For example, the Art of Science, based in Memphis, Tennessee, looks to unite the vibrant communities of scientists and artists to communicate the beauty of science through the power of art. In a similar vein, Descience explores how scientific discovery can provide inspiration for fashion designers (). Other opportunities to bring together scientists and artists are provided by the Ligo Project (). Specifically, Ligo Project's Art of Science is a six-month artist-in-residence program that pairs an artist with scientists, with the goal of creating a piece of science-inspired art. Art of Science Gallery Night is an opportunity to showcase these projects for the community and allow for learning and exploring through art. Professional societies, such as the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), have also embraced STEAM as an effective method to interface with the community and to support projects through the Committee for Postdocs and Students (COMPASS) Outreach Grants (). One such example is the Emerging Undergraduate Research-Inspired Cell Art (EURICA) program, an interdisciplinary science outreach program designed to inspire students to take science and apply it to their interests ( 47). These students participated in science experiments and were then asked to create a work of art based on their experience. Another such example was presented at CESTEMER 2014 by Margaret Corbit, who spoke on how 3D virtual worlds can be used as convergent spaces that inspire creativity and engage kids in challenging projects ( 48). Taken together, these STEAM outreach projects are fostering trainees to consider future careers in science while bridging the gap between scientists and community.

The case for STEAM learning among professional scientists

The contributions of art to science range from effective unidirectional communication to a better exchange of ideas and the generation of new scientific knowledge. Such collaborations can be beneficial to both fields, as well as to society as a whole.

The impact of a well-thought out professional illustration applied to science is well demonstrated by the Biophysical Journal cover art for volume 104, issue 6: the artwork by Patrick Lane references Robert Crumb's poster Keep On Truckin' in order to quickly summarize and communicate the experiment that the authors developed to show the translocation steps of Myosin V ( 49). Scientists should consider hiring illustrators as they strive to fulfill journal requirements, publish graphical abstracts, better communicate their findings, and save time spent on generating effective figures/diagrams. As a bonus, the interaction with artists may also reveal a gap in the knowledge of the problem of interest ( 50).

In fact, Dr. D. Odde (University of Minnesota) and the performance group Black Label Movement (Minneapolis/St Paul, MN) seem to be making the most of such interactions. In the TEDMed talk "If truth is beauty, can art be science?" (), the collaborators illustrate how performers not only help with outreach, but contribute to brainstorming hypotheses. In a lab where "scientists and dancers collide," performers move according to prescribed rules that represent the different hypotheses generating the rapid prototyping "body storming." Such simulations are complementary to the in silico ones that may take weeks or months to generate.

The choreographer Liz Lerman (Dance Exchange) collaborated with more than 30 scientists from almost as many institutions to create the multimedia play Ferocious Beauty: Genome (). Art and science are not only symbiotic but also have similarities, according to Dr. E. Jakobsson (University of Illinois, IL): "Both better be true-otherwise they are no good. Both require a lot of discipline to get at truth. And for me, seeing a subject through both the scientific and the artistic lens deepens the intensity of the pleasure and the depth of the meaning" ( http://danceexchange.org/projects/ferocious-beauty-genome/). The play premiered at one of the collaborating institutions, Wesleyan University (CT), and it changed its culture. According to Pamela Tatge, it was a "terrific catalyst for interdisciplinary collaboration." ( http://danceexchange.org/projects/ferocious-beauty-genome/). The series of community-centered activities that followed engaged diverse audiences, who participated in discussions on timely and sensitive topics such as stem cell research. Such discussions may have great impact on public understanding of science, with consequences on regulations and public funding.

Scientists can benefit from the transferable skills required in the performing arts in their research practice before their project is shared and discussed with the general public. The 21 st Century Grand Challenges () are extremely multidisciplinary and demand effective interactions among professionals with diverse training and background knowledge. Alonzo and Gaff designed and hosted workshops to promote better communications among students and faculty pursuing joint math-biology research. The activities used are derived from theater pedagogy. According to Alonzo, the benefit of transferring rehearsal and rapport skills from the theater to research collaborations is that theater has structures to do these things playfully and efficiently ( 51). Participants developed skills to focus on the group. They also became aware of different backgrounds, perspectives and values that are specific to each field. This performance-based skillset is invaluable for effective collaboration and handling conflict ( 51). Similarly, through improvisational theater, scientists become cognizant of ways of speaking and working that support reflective practice and academic, professional growth (52; Hug & Holmes, 2012, Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC).

Even within a single field of study, educators can take advantage of theater and improv pedagogy to facilitate the introduction of active learning activities in the classroom ( 53), and research mentors can help members of the lab be better prepared and supported when facing the unknown. In the TEDGlobal 2013 talk, "Why truly innovative science demands a leap into the unknown," Dr. U. Alon (Weizmann Institute, Israel) explains how risk-taking and failure are encouraged in improvisational theater, while in academia, we focus on results and share little on how we experience the process (). He observed that this can lead to frustration, depression, and stress in researchers. He explains how he actively and consciously transfers the skills he learned from theater to develop a creative, supportive, and productive environment in his research lab. He closes his talk by sharing his vision that "every scientist would know words like 'the cloud,' saying 'Yes, and,' and science will become much more creative, make many more unexpected discoveries, and be more playful." The mentoring skills associated with his vision are improvisational. Accordingly, the Sloan Foundation Programs in Exemplary Mentoring funded improv-based trainings for faculty to develop mentoring skills as practiced at the Mathematical Theoretical Biology Institute () Through improvisational theater training, scientists see the possibility of generating new interactions in the workplace that support collaborative communication practices and creative research (52; Hug & Holmes, 2012, Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
STEAM: Using the Arts to Train Well-Rounded and Creative Scientists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the demand for a strong STEM workforce continues to grow, there are challenges that threaten our ability to recruit, train, and retain such a workforce in a way that is effective and sustainable and fosters innovation. One way in which we are meeting ...

# data[].attributes.body
Social-Emotional Art Learning is made up of three components:
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social-Awareness
All three of these components are easily introduced into art curriculum because they are already present in the artistic process.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introducing Social-Emotional Artistic Learning.

Join The Inspired Classroom on the journey to learn about SEAL! Social-Emotional Artistic Learning

For many years now, I have been exploring how arts integration strategies can apply to CASEL's SEL competencies. They are a natural combination!

As one of my art colleagues and Repeater Retreater, Kate Bernardoni, put it once,

Nothing could be more true. When we are teaching students about arts skills and how to apply them to their lives, we are teaching them Self-Awareness. When listening to music to help regulate our emotions, we are practicing Self-Management. Student interaction with others in drama-inspired activities promotes the use of Social-Awareness. And when we move and dance with one another, we build Relationship Skills. And throughout, we work on Making Responsible Decisions: for ourselves and with others.

The idea behind introducing Social-Emotional Artistic Learning is that we can use arts integration strategies specifically to teach, build and practice social-emotional learning competencies. As with any true arts integration, we will teach arts standards at the same time that we teach SEL competencies.

SEAL combines two amazing approaches to learning!
Arts Integration + Social-Emotional Learning = SEAL
As you may already know, the arts are powerful for learning as they can reach us at our own personal level of understanding while expanding our understanding of other content. That's why arts integration strategies are so successful. Now, we are ready to learn ways arts integration can develop our learning about our social-emotional well-being.

We at The Inspired Classroom understand that our students need to build Social-Emotional skills. That's why we have taken on the exciting path of exploring all things SEAL!

Let's Get You Started with SEAL

To start, we've created a SEAL Starter Kit where you can get access to some basic information, 4 SEAL activities, 2 SEAL Lessons and our most popular SEAL tool! You can sign up to get your FREE copy here:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introducing Social-Emotional Artistic Learning - The Inspired Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Join The Inspired Classroom on the journey to learn about SEAL! Social-Emotional Artistic Learning For many years now, I have been exploring how arts integration strategies can apply to CASEL's SEL competencies. They are a natural combination! As one of my art colleagues and Repeater Retreater, Kate Bernardoni, put it once, Nothing could be more true.

# data[].attributes.body
In the article "Principles of Possibilities- Considerations for a a 21st-Century Art & Culture Curriculum" Olivia Gude introduces the 'principles of possibility' as a structure that teachers can base their curriculum off. I found a couple different parts of this article interesting. First, I was intrigued by the section on play and a line that stood out to me was "today's students, over-constricted by an educational system that often focuses on knowing the one right answer, need guidance in reclaiming their capacities for conceptual, imaginative play". This stood out to me because I remember being a student that struggled with this when I first got into college classes that gave me the freedom to choose my own concepts. It took a lot of encouragement and time for me to really settle into this new way of art making in which I got to choose what I made and how I made it. The second thing that stood out to me was the section on forming self. This aligns with my unit plan research because of the connection the Gude makes with social-emotional learning skills such as self-awareness and self-identity. These skills are often avoided in education, but they are extremely important to the development of our students into well-rounded individuals. I am really glad that Gude touched on that in her article.

# data[].attributes.body
Project Ideas for incorporating STEAM into the art curriculum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm back with more art ideas for kids and the second installment of heavy metal art, this time in the form of Magnetic Doodles! If you didn't catch our Heavy Metal Art Boxes be sure to hop over here. Today we are taking the iron filings OUT of the box and using them to draw. The most magical thing about this project is the way the iron filings spill out of the bottle and then stick to the magnetic sheets; it's an experience that cannot be captured in photos, video, or words, but must really be experienced through touch and feeling the invisible force of magnetism. It's sure to delight!
MAGNET SAFETY!!!! READ THIS FIRST!!!!
MAGNETS ARE A CHOKING HAZARD AND WORSE! Magnets should never EVER be ingested. Magnets are one of the few items that when swallowed may need surgical removal. If you have a child who even stands the remote chance of putting a magnet in their mouth please supervise this activity at all times or better yet, save it until they are older and able to understand this hazard. When working with magnets and children I prefer to ere on the side of caution and use big honking magnets that are not choking hazards!

Note: This projects does not use small magnets except for the optional clean-up process, still I like everyone to know the potential hazards when using magnets.
Now a word about IRON FILINGS:

They are relatively inexpensive. I was thrilled to find iron filings are less than $10 when purchased online; we reuse ours at the end of this project so one pound of iron filings should last you a long time. They are generally sold for use in science projects.

Iron filings are HEAVY. Wow! When my one pound of iron filings arrived in the mail I was shocked at how small the package was, until I lifted the filings out of the box and realized just how heavy they are. Talk about density!

SAFETY: Iron filings should only be used with children who are old enough not to smell or ingest them. Iron filings made for science projects, like the ones here, are generally safe but are irritants if ingested, inhaled, or rubbed in the eyes. Make sure to warn children in advance about using them safely and wash their hands thoroughly when the project is done. Safety goggles would be a good preventive measure from getting them in the eyes. Beasue they are so heavy they don't stand much a chance of being airborne, but they can get lifted up by sticky fingers!

This post contains affiliate links to products I love and recommend to my readers, plus it keeps this little blog o'mine afloat! Thank you!
Materials

Instructions

Step One Trim paper as necessary to match your magnetic sheets.

Step Two Place one magnetic sheet down on a tray. Place a piece of colorful paper over the magnetic sheet.

Step Three Fill a squeeze bottle with iron filings. Clip the tip of the squeeze bottle off so that the filings can easily flow out of the tip. Don't trim it so much that they spill out, you want a gentle continuous flow.

Step Four Hold the squeeze bottle above the paper/magnetic sheet and "draw" with the iron filings

Step Five When you are done you can gently lift the entire drawing (be sure to grab hold of the magnetic sheet) into a vertical position and the iron filings will stay in place due to the magnetic force.

Step Six Over a tray, separate the paper from the magnetic sheet and watch the iron filings fall off the drawing. Start over!

There you have it, creative scientific fun!

For easy clean up I recommend collecting the iron filings in a "dump tray" then using a piece of folded paper or a funnel to put the filings back into the squeeze bottles. Any extra filings that have spilled out can be collected using a strong ceramic magnet.

Looks Like

Fabian Oefner. Fabian Oefner is a new artist to me but how I could have missed him until now is astounding. After all, he makes art from science, usually photographing scientific experiments extremely close-up to reveal just how beautiful chemistry, physics, and motion are. His work is absolutely stunning! Check out his TED talk on Psychedelic Science. And don't miss his photographs of ferroliquid, it's magnetic art on a nano level.

Conclusion

Art projects like magnetic doodles not only let kids explore their senses and creativity but teach them a thing or two about science, in this case about magnetism and density (those iron filings are sooooo dense). This idea is seriously easy and the nice thing about is that the filings can be collected when the project is done and reused for something else.

More

If you enjoyed this playful way to explore magnetism you will also want to check out Magnetic Sculptures and our Heavy Metal Art Boxes

Magnetism is also a fantastic jumping off point for exploring electricity. For older kids this Electricity and Magnetism Kit would be a great next step in learning about what you can do with magnets!

And don't miss out on more unsual art ideas for kids here on Babble Dabble Do! Your child's inner Fabian Oefner thanks you! Subscribe below or like us on

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Science & Art Ideas for Kids: Explore magnetism through art using iron filings and magnetic sheets.

# data[].attributes.body
Using the Four C's:
-Creativity
-Critical Thinking
-Communication
-Collaboration
Remember to start with art and let it be the focus of the lesson. We are not science teachers, we are art teachers so we need to focus on what we know while we learn to mix in the other stuff.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Turning STEM into STEAM isn't as simple as it sounds. STEAM lessons don't always blend art as an equal component to the other disciplines. There are many lessons out there that claim to be STEAM, but the added art is usually an afterthought and little to no aesthetic concepts are put into the actual process. It's not that STEAM lessons have to produce a desirable outcome; it's just that STEAM lessons should highlight the subject it was meant to incorporate in the first place.

Try starting with the art and moving into the STEM connections.

Think about how much breadth is included under the STEM umbrella. It's far reaching; multiple avenues of math are included, various branches of science, not to mention all the components of engineering and technology. It's difficult to cover each discipline with equal concentration. When I plan lessons with my STEM colleague, we try to strike a balance that feels rigorous, yet manageable. Hitting a couple of benchmarks within STEM standards is a good starting point.

Finally, determine how you can infuse the 4Cs (Creativity, Critical thinking, Communication, and Collaboration) into your planning. Again, realistically, it's hard to cover all of these concepts at once, and many times it's best to narrow your unit down to what you feel is best integrated authentically. For example, providing opportunities for students to answer reflective questions about their art making process can boost critical thinking skills while using peer feedback activities or critiques can facilitate more meaningful communication within your classroom.

Integrating art into STEM lessons with integrity can be done. It's about finding the balance where the art portion is kept genuine and equally combined with the other disciplines. Here is a STEAM planning document for you to use as a guide. Take a look at the download below.

Download Now

In addition, we are excited to announce that we'll be launching a brand new class this April called Project Based Art Room! The class is a perfect introduction to all things PBL (Project-Based Learning), STEAM, Design Thinking, Makerspaces and more! This class will be for beginning and experienced teachers alike as various methods of incorporating these 21st-century models will be explored and integrated into your own teaching practices. Find out more here.
What is the best way for you to plan for STEAM lessons or units? What has been your most successful STEAM lesson?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Keep the Integrity of Art in STEAM - The Art of Education University

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Turning STEM into STEAM isn't as simple as it sounds. STEAM lessons don't always blend art as an equal component to the other disciplines. There are many lessons out there that claim to be STEAM, but the added art is usually an afterthought and little to no aesthetic concepts are put into the actual process.

# data[].attributes.body
Graphic novel by Nick Sousani

# data[].attributes.body
-Greeting/Encouragement Cards
(make greeting cards in the shape of business cards to hand out to people)
-Comic Strip of two people first meeting
(two people first meeting/ exchanging pleasantries)
-Greetings Across Cultures
(performance art/film project could be collaborative)
-Create a New Greeting /Communication Device
(sculpture/technology)
-Make a Sculpture that Greets You
(sculpture/technology)

# data[].attributes.body
Here are some questions I've thought of that have multiple right answers:

-Are selfies the same as self-portraits?

-What emotions do you feel when you look at Yayoi Kusama's "The Aftermath of the Obliteration of Eternity"?

-What is the most emotionally impactful piece of art that you have seen/experienced?

# data[].attributes.body
Key Ideas:

-Creative writing is characterized by the creation of virtual reality, the presence of ambiguity, the use of expressive language, the use of vernacular language, the promotion of empathy, the personal signature of the researcher/writer, the presence of aesthetic form.

-Forms of creative writing: memoir, personal essay, short story, novel, drama, and poetry.

-Importance of writer's workshops and teaching students how to give each other constructive criticism. Then teaching students how to take that criticism and put it to use in their writing.

How arts and creative writing support each other:

-the arts and creative writing are both disciplines of the imagination.

-"Students find that the habits of mind they develop in one area of the arts are easily transported to others. The questions of authenticity and personal vision, of audience and publishing, of critique and cultural discourse-- all these and others are freely engaged in the literacy and visual arts."

Artists to present to a class:

-Chagoya

-Do Ho Suh

Ideas for k-12 instruction:

-Devise joint activities based on word and image.

-Media literacy and video production project involving story boarding.

-Metaphor motivated artwork.

# data[].attributes.body
Folded Collage by Jorge Lucero

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Photo courtesy of Alberto Aguilar /MCA event announcement / video by Jorge Lucero / NOTE: A critical essay about Guest Lecture All Day Long (14 hours) is already underway!

# data[].attributes.body
This book is about incorporating different genres of creative writing into the art classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
In this week's reading "Intersections, Identities, and the Landscape of Preservice Education" authors Shyla Rao and Amy Pfeiler-Wunder discuss the importance of discussing critical issues in a manner that is inclusive for all students. The ability to have a conversation about critical issues starts with the teacher, thus Rao and Pfeiler-Wunder run us through a series of exercises for pre-service teachers that help us to better understand ourselves, others, and experiences. The exercise that I was most interested in was the one for "develop a nuanced  understanding ourselves and others" in which teachers have to think about how other people see them and it forces them to confront the biases they experience and take a closer look at what defines them. I think this would be a great thing for high school students to do at the beginning of the academic year to help the teacher get to know them. It may help the teacher to understand key elements of the student's interests, personality, and insecurities.

# data[].attributes.body
Work of Art as Empathy:
(Telling of a Personal Story)
-Carnival Art Work
Work of Art in the Social Realm:
(Art as Inherently Multidisciplinary)
-STEAM Lessons
-Technology Lesson (iPads)
Work of Art as Empathy:
(Viewing, Questioning, and Responding to Other Artists)
-Collaboration
-Critique

# data[].attributes.headline
Ideas for Lesson Plan on "Working with Ugly":

# data[].attributes.subject
Ideas for Lesson Plan on "Working with Ugly":

# data[].attributes.body
What is the purpose of art?
To be pleasing to the eye?
To make you think?
To change your opinion?
Failure-
The idea of using failure to propel your work forward instead of fearing it and trying to avoid it.
Draw a picture with a pencil with eraser. Finish the picture even if/when you mess up.
Make three different drawings of the same thing.
What did you learn from this process?
Also how does it change the way that you view art making?
Is it more of a process rather than an end result that way?

# data[].attributes.body
Final Draft