The Soul Thinks In Images

When art is created, there is a purpose to why the act of making art is repeated again and again. To return to repetition in art-making is to return to the soul, to the need to capture and express what is innermost and intangible.

Thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations are innermost and intangible to each person and are the basis of creating a natural language of expression. London(1989) quotes the process of making art as a “visual expression as a natural and full language to every person” and sees the creative purpose as a means to support “uncovering sources of inner worth”.

Inner worth is based on life experiences and ways of being that no one else really has or is. Some may be similar to others, yet, people with many threads of connections; are still different.

Art is valuable because the keeper of that art is the custodian of someone else’s inner work that comes from their inner worth. This is not simply speaking to technical skill, but the life being lived out and from the outflow of that person’s heart, the seat of the spirit and soul, outpoured into the art itself.

The heart of art is the artist’s expression of true living and being. This seems to be a spiritual endeavor more than not and as a spiritual practice, purposeful.

I write this to encourage those that may not considered themselves artists as living works of art. There is art inside. Art captures living embodiment. The means of expression creates purpose. It’s the pursuit of truth from building a relationship between the innermost and the intangible. The art is the evidence of the innermost and the intangible.

I think being more in wonder and awe of art making and the purpose of art becomes something sacred and integral the more I create my own art, admire others’ art, or witness as an art therapist when in sessions.

To think in images, to feel in images, to exist in images, is soulful creation.

Book Recommendation: “No More Secondhand Art: Awakening The Artist Within” by, Peter London (no affiliation or commission associated with this recommendation)

References: London, P., Rubenstein, K., & Walz, K. (1989). No more secondhand art: awakening the artist within. Shambhala.