Applying Life Lessons for Art; from Art

This article will highlight the merits of applying life lessons to art and art lessons to life. Applying life lessons for art; from art highlights reciprocity between lessons learned from embodying an artist’s mindset and actions into the bigger picture of one’s life and applying broader life lessons into one’s artistic journey.

Comparing Life and Art

Comparing life and making art helps to bridge a connection between the practical side of ourselves and opens us to creativity. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke to the true value of art as mirrors of the minds and lives of a civilization. Appreciating and creating art provides a marvelous opportunity to express ourselves beyond spoken language, deepening our understanding of emotions, values, and human nature.

When we look beyond the artwork itself, we see much more than ink and canvas. We are welcomed into the artist’s mindset, emotions, and the story alive in them when they expressed themselves through their art. The artist holds beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, motivations, and skills they bring to and are represented in their craft. So the practice of making the art itself provides solace, release, communicates messages and desires back to the creator, exercising skills applicable to their broader life outside of artistry.

Mindset

The quality of our lives and the level of our creative confidence come down to our mindset. The attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives we carry as we approach and understand ourselves and the world we’re thrown into. Evaluating one’s mindset in life and our artistry and the lessons we can take from each helps us feel more empowered, confident, and capable as successful, creative people.

Mindset: beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, levels of motivation, satisfaction, and engagement with life activities; frame of mind, persona, mentality.

Our mindset frames what we will see and notice in our daily lives, what we ignore or are ignorant of, how we feel about ourselves, what parts of our surroundings and relationships we value, and which parts we discern. During playtential time, we adopt certain beliefs and energy to express ourselves through art confidently.

The curious thing about this experience is the commonly lived disconnect between the two. Do you or others notice their confidence in one area feels effortless while we feel small and incompetent in another? Applying life lessons for art and art lessons for life can ease this experience with simple, profound reminders that we can be confident when alone, at work, in our communities, and in front of an easel or audience, too.

Your mindset influences how you feel, think and respond to life circumstances and situations. It is the software behind your actions; what you do to act upon your perspective of reality within and outside of you.

Action

Action: what you do, exercising your mindset via acting upon your worldview through how you use your time, energy, skills, express yourself, make choices, create and sustain relationships.

By doing art, actually acting upon your curiosities and dreams of artistry, you learn pivotal lessons in learning by doing. You learn to enjoy the process, experiment and play, let go of perfectionism, and appreciate the flexibility of creative expression. Action is present, experimental, courageous, and productive. Allowing yourself to act upon your mindset vulnerably, transformative lessons in life, and the art can serve you more fulfillment, connection, and confidence.

Art Therapy

The modern-day mental health and art therapy movement names exercising creativity is essential to wellbeing. Helping ourselves evolve through challenging or limiting emotional and thought patterns could certainly be served through art. Substantial research shows that art therapy can improve concentration and expression and connect people beyond default verbal language. Because of it, this may lead to profound leaps in improving self-awareness, esteem, and confidence in our art and our daily living and relationships.

Art therapy can offer to move through anxiety, depression, PTSD, stress, substance dependency, attention deficit disorders. Creative exercises can also support geriatric issues, compassion fatigue, feelings of isolation and loneliness, relationship and family issues, and so much more.

Applying Lessons in Life to Art, and Art to Life

Become aware of how your attitudes and beliefs shape your daily life. Where confidence shines. And where you see it fall. For instance, can you step into your confident, empowered self more often? How about in your creative life? Is it possible for you to harness creative confidence whilst at your workplace, on a first date, in public, and around your family, too? What if you could, and what would that feel like?

See how the following insights/lessons below land for you. How may we adopt these mantras in our lives more broadly, and also when we sit down to embark on our creative projects? Let me know your thoughts and experience in this exercise in the comments.

Life Lessons for Art

Mindset is everything.

Change your internal script, change your life.

Try, and try again.

Take risks.

If you never try, you’ll never know//Baby steps are still steps.

You are unique, as will be all that you create.

Enjoy the journey.

Life Lessons from Art

Play!

Nothing is permanent.

Happy accidents as opportunities.

Be, and share yourself.

Nothing is for everyone – but there is always someone who will connect with your work.

Try new things.