This is your brain on art

The artistic hands of Anna Battaglia McDermott. 

Rochester’s School of the Arts graduates around 90% of its students. The overall Rochester City School District graduates an astonishingly-bad 43% of its students. Although this has been the subject of much discussion, the idea that art itself influences the mind seems to have escaped both the pundits and the pedagogical establishment.

Hydrangeas, by Sandy Quang, painted last night. Not even a deluge could stop them from painting.

Various studies have shown that making art reduces stress and help us process traumatic events. In itself, that ought to justify art education. But those of us who make art know that it’s an intellectual discipline like mathematics or grammar, and as such, it helps develop the brain.  A recent studyvalidates that.

Over 10 weeks, scientists at the University Hospital Erlangen asked elderly men and women to participate in hands-on art classes, while a control group took an art appreciation course. Researchers discovered “a significant improvement in psychological resilience” among those who actually drew and painted. 

Birches, by Nina Koski, painted last night. 

The fMRI scans of the art-class group also showed improved efficacy in the parts of the brain associated with cognitive processes like introspection, self-monitoring, and memory.

“The participants in our study were required to perform the cognitive tasks of following, understanding, and imitating the visual artist’s introduction. Simultaneously, the participants had to find an individual mode of artistic expression and maintain attention while performing their activity. Although we cannot provide mechanistic explanations, the production of visual art involves more than the mere cognitive and motor processing described. The creation of visual art is a personal integrative experience – an experience of ‘flow,’ – in which the participant is fully emerged in the creative activity,” wrote the authors.

Gate, by Anna McDermott, painted last night.

Art and music education are the first things we cut when school budgets are in trouble. Meanwhile, a 2012 study found that the total spending on ADHD (just one of many forms of maladaptation to modern school) ranges from $143 billion to $266 billion a year. Perhaps more art classes and fewer drugs are in order.

Young Ilse thinks she's having fun. Please don't tell her this is good for her.

Come to Maine and learn to paint. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

The sunscreen dilemma

Excessive sun and skin exposure isn't something we worry about in the northeast. This is Sue Leo painting in Rockport, ME, with me last summer. Cool and damp, which is why we all have such lovely skin.

When I was identified as having a gene for Lynch Syndrome, I resolved to be better about applying sunscreen when outside painting or teaching. After all, if you learned you had a mutation that made you vulnerable to lung cancer, you’d hardly keep on smoking, would you?

The problem is that I just can’t seem to break the sun habit. I live in the far north, where we have two months in which we can shed our layers. And I’m chronically Vitamin D-deficient (which is endemic here in the Great Lakes region). Higher levels of vitamin D are associated with better outcomes for colorectal cancer, which I’ve had once and am at a high risk of having again.

When it's sunny, we're often bundled up and exposing very little skin. Here we are painting at Owl's Head, Maine, last October.

A new study seems to indicate that even high-SPF sunscreen provides insufficient protection against melanomas (the skin cancer that kills) although they provide adequate protection against the less-aggressive squamous-cell carcinomas.

 “UV light targets the very genes protecting us from its own damaging effects, showing how dangerous this cancer-causing agent is,” said lead investigator Professor Richard Marais of the University of Manchester's Cancer Research UK Institute.

His research found that SPF 50 sunscreen did not protect against the development of melanoma with UV sunlight exposure. Although sunscreen protects us against sunburn, it might not protect against skin cancer.  

When it all comes together—sun, warmth and subject—it’s hard to remember to stop and put on sunscreen.

Does this mean I can stop worrying about sunscreen when I’m outside painting? Sadly, no. “This work highlights the importance of combining sunscreen with other strategies to protect our skin, including wearing hats and loose fitting clothing, and seeking shade when the sun is at its strongest,” said Professor Marais.

Well, I do wear a hat, and capris instead of shorts. I could add ¾ length sleeves. But no socks. Socks with sandals are ridiculous.

Buy some sunscreen and come to Maine and learn to paint. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

Did you miss your calling?

Dr. Seuss was a successful commercial artist when, at age 34, he wrote his first book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street." It was rejected by publishers dozens of times. He was in his late 40s when he began successfully writing and selling children’s books. He did this advertisement in the 1930s.

This past week I had conversations with two artists about the feasibility of being a full-time artist.

One is a woman with a young family, a mortgage, an MFA and a good (albeit temporary) job. Judging by the work I’ve seen, she has prodigious talent. If given the opportunity for a permanent position, should she take it? Or should she chuck that idea and try to work as a waitress nights and weekends so that she can still make art.

As a working mother, she is already doing two jobs. Adding a third job will be difficult, if not impossible. Until her kids are old enough for school, she’d be smart to do whatever pays best, and save money against the day she drops the day job and takes up painting again. In the meantime, she can carve out a small corner of her house and a few hours a week to nurture her talent, even if it’s by sketching in her spare time.

Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, was the poster girl for late-life career changes, having turned to painting in her seventies. Here, Country Fair, 1950.

In essence, that’s what I did. I worked in the marketplace until I was in my late 30s, when a combination of life events made it possible—mandatory, even—for me to resume painting. (There was a time when our society acknowledged that raising children was valuable work. Now, childrearing is supposed to run silently in the background, taking no time or effort at all.)

One of my painting students has an MBA and work experience in an area of business analysis I won’t pretend to understand. She picked up brushes in response to a life crisis and in the process discovered that she has a real affinity for it.

On Saturday, we discussed what the next step might be for a person who wants to start selling paintings. As so often happens with these things, Life answered her question; she was approached about doing a solo show at a local venue.

Vincent Van Gogh didn't actually start painting until he was in his late 20s, when he only had a decade left to live. Most of his masterpieces were created in the last two years of his life. Wheat Field with Crows, 1890, is generally accepted to be his last painting.

That’s a tremendous affirmation, but as we old-timers know, a show is just a doorway through which you enter the next phase of your work. She still has a long, hard slog ahead of her, but she has the character to endure it.

Neither of these women will find it an easy road. But in both cases, I think they will find something very valuable comes from it.

Come to Maine and learn to paint before it’s too late. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.