What if it's not art?

Paraphrased from the book, Bittersweet: 

Making art, decorating, singing, dancing--whether or not we do them "well," whether or not we do it for an audience--lifts the spirit.  But "we don't need to create art ourselves"--Studies show that the "simple act of viewing beautiful art increases activity in the pleasure and reward centers of the brain.  It feels...a lot like falling in love." 

I have watched hundreds of hours of videos of artists making collage and abstract paintings.  For the first year or so of my art-play (I've never taken an actual art class), I tried to do the things that the first videos taught.  I tried to tell a story.  Now that I've been at it for a while, I've learned which processes can teach me the most in making the kinds of things I can attempt with some degree of success. 

Since I have zero talent at drawing, I don't watch videos in which artists make realistic or semi-realistic renderings.  I couldn't draw a horse or a boat or a person's face if my life depended on it, but almost as fun as making collages is watching others make them in ways I'd never have learned without their help.  

I watch Jane Davies' videos over and over.  She's a kookie and delightful Vermont artist who raises chickens and plays the ukulele. Her process captivates me, a loose and messy process of marking and gluing and painting in large sweeping strokes.  Because I'm by nature a perfectionist, I need the balance of her confident messiness.  Tear, don't cut.  Try this, paint over it if it doesn't work--therefore showing layers of shapes and lines underneath a veil of neutral or white paint. 

Another artist whose online classes inspire me are those of San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle.  Here's a technique I particular like: making a big playful page of images and colors, textures and marks, and then using a pre-cut mat board isolate parts you like.  Maybe the finished pieces are not art.  Maybe they are just pleasant accidents, but doing this gets me out of my head.  

Yesterday, Day wrote a student's name on the board in block letters and beside it she drew a picture of a horse.  Not a good one, she said.  But it stirred curiosity and laughter.  "Now, my name, Miss!" Domingo called out.  Every student wanted his or her name on the board.  After a year of obeying orders (as you'd give to a dog) like "Sit!" and "Quiet!" they were actually laughing and reading and seeing their names in block letters! 

Maybe they will learn each other's names, maybe they will learn it's okay to draw a horse badly, or maybe they will learn to have pride in their own names--without fear of the "police coming to their houses if they speak Spanish."  I'm pretty sure their new teacher didn't have this in her lesson plan book.  She just started playing on the board and they all wanted in, activating the reward and pleasure regions of their teenaged brains.