“Making something pretty?”
Writing the first post after a long break is hard. Part of me feels I should apologise - “Sorry! It has been way too long since I published here”. But life happens - long COVID (poof - there went 12 months!!), interstate and international travel for teaching (wonderful but time consuming), and dyeing more threads than I ever could have imagined when I started my business. So an apology is the wrong sentiment. Instead, I will simply say that it is lovely to be back. A few of you have gently asked me when I’m going to start writing again (you know who you are - thankyou!), so with that encouragement I will do my best to share more of the myriad ideas that continue to bubble. I still care deeply about The Hands Manifesto, and two years of continuing to talk about it has only strengthened my opinion.
Despite the lack of written words here, The Hands Manifesto hasn’t been completely languishing. After the interruption of long COVID (the brain fog really was diabolical!), I was feeling quite sad. My momentum was gone and the lack of energy made it hard for me to pick myself up again. One afternoon, I sat in a coffee shop in Adelaide with my oldest friend, and found myself in tears as I tried to explain my frustration at not being able to follow through on what I had started. In her beautifully wise and supportive way, she told me that I needed to let go of having a specific goal or outcome attached to this project. It was ok for me to keep researching and exploring ideas, trying different formats for sharing and discussing them, and giving myself permission to meander on the journey. It was a good reminder. I tell my students all the time to simply enjoy the process, and I’d forgotten to give myself the same advice!
In giving myself that permission and space, a few wonderful and interesting things have happened.
First, I found a life changing book. A big claim I know - but not overstating it. “Your Brain on Art” by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross is about the new field of neuroaesthetics (also known as neuroarts). This is all about the neuroscience that examines human interactions and responses to aesthetic experiences. I love the book so much I have it in three formats - physical, digital, and audible! I have listened to every podcast interview I can find with the authors and loved them all. These women speak my language - and they share the science to prove all the things that my hands have instinctively known all along. I’ll delve into this book in more detail in future posts, but here are a couple of quotes to give you a taste.
“Many of us tend to think of the arts as either entertainment or as an escape. A luxury of some kind. But what this book will show you is that the arts are so much more. They can be used to fundamentally change your day-to-day life. They can help address serious physical and mental health issues, with remarkable results. And they can both help you learn and flourish.”
“In the same way you might exercise to lower cholesterol and increase serotonin in the brain, just twenty minutes of doodling or humming can provide immediate support for your physical and mental state.”
The point here is that these findings are not trivial. Engaging in aesthetic experiences is every bit as important to your wellbeing as diet, exercise and sleep. And we have the science to prove it.
Second, I have had several opportunities to present a talk around these ideas (one of these is recorded here if you are interested). My goal is to make sure that everyone who has some sort of aesthetic practice in their life - as a hobby, as a professional, as a facilitator - is empowered by the knowledge that the time they spend on this work is not a frivolous luxury. These talks are essentially talking to the converted. As one woman told me, “We know this stuff already. There’s nothing new here!” And she’s right. If you are a maker, then one of your many motivations is almost certainly that making things makes you feel good. The difference is that we now have an ever growing library of scientific research that is proving it. If someone suggests that it all sounds like a lot of new age, woowoo nonsense, I can tell them that research from Drexel University proves that 45 minutes of art practice in a safe and supportive environment, is proven to reduce the stress hormone cortisol (Girija Kaimal et al., 2016). It’s not just my gut feeling anymore.
In an attempt to avoid the echo chamber effect, my third activity has been to look for spaces beyond my safe and supportive craft world to talk about The Hands Manifesto. In July this year, I presented at the International Conference on Thinking in Melbourne. ICOT is a wonderful event that brings together people from all walks of life to cross fertilise ideas that might help solve the big problems of the world. As I waited to go in for the very first session, knowing absolutely nobody, I struck up a conversation with a woman standing near me. It was like finding an instant kindred spirit. Within a few minutes of being seated in the auditorium, we had connected with two more women sitting nearby. All of us had arrived knowing no-one, but were drawn to an event that encouraged the exchange of ideas with the potential to make change in the world. A couple of days later, after another day of presentations, panels and discussions, the four of us strode along the length of the Melbourne Convention Centre. I was filled with this sense of empowerment. Here were four very different women - a Māori woman who started life as a teacher and then became an education administrator; a former engineer turned passionate maths teacher; a lawyer who was looking for a new life path where she could make a more meaningful contribution; and yours truly - a physicist/geoscientist turned embroiderer and advocate for working with our hands. We had so much respect for each other and the contributions we were already making, and so much support for the things we each dreamed of achieving. It felt like we could take on the world.
But hooley dooley, did I come up against some push back too. One man had given a keynote presentation about the ways in which technology could be used to enhance thinking and learning in students. In the course of his talk, he flashed up a slide that showed that whilst some cognitive skills in young people had improved, manual skills had deteriorated. This wasn’t the focus of his talk, so I went to ask him about it afterwards. I gave him the elevator pitch about my journey thus far, the talk I had come to deliver at the conference, and why I felt we needed to be concerned about the loss of manual skills. His response went something like this, “You know, I think if you choose to spend your time making something pretty, then that is a statement of your intention.” I was so flabbergasted by his response, that I barely knew how to respond. Had he just comprehensively dismissed me by taking everything I had just described and calling it “something pretty”???
And on another day, another keynote presenter advised me that I needed to “stop wasting my time in community arts”, and also stop telling people that I was an embroiderer. Apparently, the only way I had any chance of “making lots of money” was with the corporates, and clearly being an embroiderer wasn’t going to cut it in that market. Hang on - where in any of what I just said, did I suggest that I wanted to turn this into a lucrative money making venture for myself??? Or is that your only definition of success.
My initial reaction to these responses was hurt and anger. I railed against “the patriarchy” that categorised me as a woman of a certain age playing around with something “pretty”, with naïve ideas that had no value unless they were going to make lots of money. I cried, I raged, I didn’t sleep very well for a couple of nights.
And then I thanked them both. Because now I know what we (yes - I include all of you in this endeavour) are actually up against.
Talking to people like you is easy. You already understand my message from your own journeys, so I can confidently encourage you to become advocates for the importance of aesthetic experiences in creating positive outcomes in health, education, and life. We can work together on gradually building awareness that the field of neuroaesthetics has the potential to deliver really important benefits in a world filled with uncertainty on so many fronts. But there will be whole sections of society that will be very hard to shift.
So I am still excited, but also a little wiser. I have so many plans and ideas for the future. Some will come to fruition, some will not, and that’s ok. The most important thing is for me to keep learning and sharing as much as I can in different ways and different forums. If any of that work helps to shift attitudes towards the importance of the arts and working with our hands, even just one person at a time, it will be worth it.
And whilst I’m doing that work, there will be a slightly bolshie voice inside my head reminding me that this is about so much more than just "making something pretty"!!!
