The Mindfulness of Art Therapy

When I started learning how to paint, I did so to reconnect with my Chinese heritage. I began with watercolours simply because it was easier to procure than the traditional ink and grindstone. I did eventually use those tools but I always gravitated back to watercolours.

I am not much of a creative painter, preferring to look at others' work and try to observe their brush strokes and colour gradients. Painting eventually became more of a meditative practice and it served as a good conduit for my own energy.

When I was hospitalized, one of the major components of my time was doing art therapy. It was soothing and helped me find some daily satisfaction and self-efficacy. When my fatigue became overwhelming, though, art was the first to drop by the wayside. 

I found my way back to it after more than 6 months of not painting, last week. In preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations for the Year of the Rat, I observed a dozen iterations of rat paintings before trying to bring them to life. In the heart of my paintings was this meditative state, a fugue, as it were. I don’t know why that brush stroke worked or that paint combined with the other to finish the painting just so. I don’t know why there is expression in the eyes or why one didn’t work out the way I expected it to. Because the product, while something I am proud of, isn’t the point.

Art therapy is all about process and the centering of oneself to exist within that process. It is as close to mindfulness and meditation that I can get so I will take it.