People should be seeing more art.
It’s a form of creative rest, and opening up to that could change your life.
I discovered creative rest, (and six other kinds of rest) in Saundra Dalton-Smith’s 2021 TED talk, The 7 types of rest that every person needs.
Like many people, I began exploring my relationship with rest during pandemic lockdown. Dr. Dalton-Smith’s talk gave me language to better understand, and work with, my respective needs for rest.
Rest in the sense of restoration: restoring, as in to restore to a state of health, soundness, or vigor. I think of it in terms of aliveness. Restorative activities and generative activities: both teach us about our aliveness.
Creative rest, for me, is a direct line into wonder, challenge, awe, and connection — connection to place, lineage, bodylife, sensation and sense-making.
Viewing visual art especially. Though lately I’m drawn to soundworks and movement too.
And then there’s making art.
Even doodling…
Creative rest is also about experiencing nature: being in nature; letting nature make its way into you.
We need them all.
…Are there more kinds of creative rest?
Often, when I attend exhibitions and other kinds of art experiences, it’s on my own. I generally prefer that actually. I think it’s a way to let be as personal as it is for me.
But then after, I so want to share it.
I don’t think you have to experience it in person for it to enter you and give you creative rest.
Sources:
[1] Saundra Dalton-Smith MD, “The 7 Types of Rest That Every Person Needs,” TED-Ed (blog), February 8, 2021, https://ed.ted.com/blog/2021/02/08/the-7-types-of-rest-that-every-person-needs.