This is what art is for

You’re telling me. (Olivet Nazarene University, Benner Library & Resource Center)

Like many people, I’ve gotten progressively more boring as I’ve gotten older.

I don’t go out as much. I work a lot. And most egregiously, when I’m driving or out for a walk, I’m more likely to listen to a podcast than music.

My fifteen-year-old self, to whom music was a fundamental reason for living, would have a hard time understanding.

Now, of course, things are so uncertain that I’m feeling a deep need for comfort. And music is one of the first things I reach for to find that comfort.

We’ve made art so dispensable and optional in modern life. A parent of one of my students asked if her daughter might skip the art and meditation components of her daily school program in order to focus on the academics. But I’d argue that things like art and meditation are the most important pieces of the curriculum right now. We need to feel soothed, inspired, stimulated, delighted. We need to feel human.

Art brings us into the present moment, whether we’re appreciating it or creating it. When I’m making music, knitting a sweater, or watching a well-made TV show, I am entirely focused on what I’m doing. The experience fills my awareness.

At the same time, art takes us somewhere else. It can allow us to escape the present moment and transport ourselves to a fantasy world, an imagined future, or our own past. We can try on other lives and experiences, whether they are those of the artist or of the characters she creates.

Art can also make us feel a sense of accomplishment: We made that bowl, that painting, that song. Alternatively: We have made it through all nine seasons of Seinfeld or read the entire Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin. We can mark our progress through the adventure of being human with via art that we produce or enjoy.

Importantly, art connects us to others. We can participate in some way in the art that others have created. We can share our own work with the world. And we can make art together. The experience of art makes us feel less alone. Even if we’re playing a Scott Joplin rag that was composed over a hundred years ago, we’re playing the exact notes that were played not only by the King of Ragtime himself, but also countless others from all over the world.

Never was there a time when it was more important to experience these fundamental benefits of art. To feel present and grounded when society is shaking on its foundations; to release ourselves from stress and anxiety into a world other than our own; to feel a sense of satisfaction, something of our own, when our entire routine and perhaps even our livelihood has been taken from us; and to feel connected to other human beings when we are isolated and alone. Art gives us all of these things and more — it is utterly necessary and precious.

Let art be your first priority each day, not your last. Appreciate beauty, find comfort, or wrestle with a new idea. Laugh with someone, even if they’re not in the room with you.

And if you can make art — and we all can — this is the perfect moment to express yourself. It’s the ideal time to find words, images, sounds, colors, shapes, or movements to share what you’re thinking, feeling, seeing, and experiencing in these days when perhaps no piece of art quite nails it. We would love to know.

Art is for times like these.