Art & Well Being
What lights up our lives…
Art within our interior and exterior design schemes has well documented effects on our sense of joy, happiness and belonging. Quite simply it has the potential to uplift both the environment and the spirit. It can offer us glimpses of what holds true for us, what lights up our souls, becoming our very own “hotline of happiness” (Michelle Ogundehin)
Despite Art and Culture being classified as “non essential” by our government, creativity in general has become a vital strategy in the context of increasing turbulence and disruption of our social frameworks. For many art has played a much more important role in their lives than previously.
Art is in high demand and for good reason. Its a way of navigating the world. It’s virtues and benefits are too many to list but the popularity and success of tv programmes such as Grayson Perry’s ‘art club’ and others, are testimony to this fact. More people than ever now actively engage in some form of artistic process. The relationship between art and our emotional well-being has become widely acknowledged.
Whether we engage in the arts and crafts or not, we are all aware of how our living and working spaces impact our health and sense of well-being. Everything around us, each object, colour and line asks for our attention, pulls on our psyche and has the power to influence our mood and spirits for better or worse. As lockdowns begin to pass into memory, perhaps we can look forward to new ways of working and living together - finding more harmony by consciously reflecting on this relationship between our vulnerable bodies and the spaces we inhabit.
In difficult times it seems obvious therefore to turn to art for some solace, joy, hope, clarity even. But how to begin, in the daunting process of buying art that’s ‘right for you’, that speaks to your unique self, family, business, premises? There is so much art being made these days, in ways and places like never before. We all know when something feels right to us or ‘looks right’ though we don’t always know why. Often my role as an art advisor is to guide clients through this maelstrom to a place that feels comfortable for them - to a point at which they ‘know’ a piece of art is the perfect one for them and their space. It can be fascinating, it’s frequently enlightening.