Gateway to Individuality
Art has always provided an outlet for any emotion you might be harboring, whether it’s music, photography, painting, drawing, writing, etc. It helps you give a voice to emotions that you might not be able to express out loud and put into words. Art can help bring attention to powerful subjects as well, if someone were to make a song or painting about things like oppression, bullying, suicide, etc. When creating art no matter the form it can usually be a reflection of someone’s identity.
One prominent example of this that I’ve seen would be the paintings that Jackson Pollock created throughout his career as an artist. Whenever Pollock experienced a strong emotion, he expressed that through his painting method. He would dip rope into different colors of paint and slap it on a canvas. You can see the different kinds of emotions based on the paint marks that show how hard the rope hit the canvas. When angry, the paint would typically hit the canvas harder leading to larger strikes with more splatters. When calm or happy the strokes would be a little more defined, and the paint would be more defined and less sloppy.
Music also serves as a good outlet. As someone who plays guitar, I can definitely say that when holding my instrument and playing to my heart’s content I feel a lot more free; I truly feel it’s an easy way to get whatever I’m feeling out. Even people who don’t create or play music in some form on their own typically listen to music when they are feeling any sort of way. The songs you seek out can commonly show how you’re feeling on the inside, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. I’ve found that a lot of the time people don’t know how to verbally say what they’re feeling but could easily provide you with a song that would sum up the emotion pretty well. I believe that this is a beautiful thing.
A lot of people will bottle up their emotions and try to ignore them which can only harm you more in the long run. Any art form can be a healthy way to release any of these feelings, whether negative or positive. It provides a safe space to just fully let go of everything you’re feeling and just dwell in it until it passes. Sometimes, trying to talk about your feelings out loud can feel limiting, whereas art can give you limitless ways to express yourself that can sometimes speak more volumes than if you were to speak out loud. Art isn’t supposed to be something you have to perfect, it’s about your ability to let the meaning and emotion you had in mindfully throw through your outlet.
