Mindfulness

SOUL FOOD">SOUL FOOD

Published on: by judelobe

SOUL FOOD

Art is good for the soul, and you have it all around you every day inside and out­side your home. It’s not only a paint­ing or pho­to­graph on a wall, or a sculp­ture in your gar­den. It is the gar­den, the jew­el­ry you wear, the pil­low on your sofa, the table­cloth, the design on your sil­ver­ware.  But art is not just some­thing to look at and admire, rec­og­nized it is func­tion­al, too. It gives you joy in view­ing it, every day it lifts your spir­its, it is good for your health.

ART IMPROVES HEALTH
Sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies sug­gest that art improves health and well-being among indi­vid­u­als. Ben­e­fits of art include improve­ment of mem­o­ry and low­er stress lev­els. Pop­u­la­tions stud­ied found that when per­sons viewed tra­di­tion­al and con­tem­po­rary gal­leries it pro­mot­ed well-being in them and includ­ed a pos­i­tive social impact and cog­ni­tive enhance­ment. 

Saman­tha Kaplan believes that “Art is gen­uine­ly a gift to the world. It’s what we crave in the human expe­ri­ence. Art gives mean­ing to our lives and helps us under­stand our world. It is an essen­tial part of our cul­ture because it allows us to have a deep­er under­stand­ing of our emo­tions; it increas­es our self-aware­ness, and also allows us to be open to new ideas and expe­ri­ences. Art there­fore con­tin­ues to open our minds and our hearts and shows us what could be pos­si­ble in our world.”

Eric Saun­ders, “Tree in Fog No. 4”,photograph

ART IS ALL AROUND US
In clos­ing, our phys­i­ol­o­gy is deeply effect­ed by feel­ings and emo­tion. Try to keep a bal­ance of good feel­ings in close prox­im­i­ty to your­self dur­ing the day. Per­haps a small paint­ing on your desk, or larg­er one on the wall. Maybe a piece of art sculp­ture at home in your win­dow sill to look at before you walk out the door. Or a calm­ing art­work on the wall of your bed­room to send you off to a peace­ful night’s rest. And be aware of the beau­ti­ful fab­rics you choose for a table­cloth, or your cloth­ing, the jew­el­ry you wear or the lamp by your chair. Art is all around us. 

HGA arti­cle by Jude Lobe

ENJOYING BEING IN THE MOMENT">ENJOYING BEING IN THE MOMENT

Published on: by judelobe

BE IN TOUCH

by Jude Lobe

This last Fri­day in May, 2019, I will be fea­tured in the show, BE IN TOUCH, with Gar­ry Childs and Pat Mer­ri­man. For this show, I was inspired by the role of Shamans who, for as long as time remem­bers, have worked to nego­ti­ate life-giv­ing har­mo­ny to all things in the envi­ron­ment. Their belief is expressed in the Native Amer­i­can quote, ” We do not inher­it the earth from our ances­tors, we bor­row it from our chil­dren.” As care­tak­ers of this plan­et, it seems to me we have much to learn from nature if we just be qui­et, observe and lis­ten.

When I am hik­ing along a trail, seat­ed on a deck look­ing out over waves of blue and pur­ple moun­tains, sit­ting with my dog, kayak­ing through marsh­es or just walk­ing in my yard being aston­ished at the array of shades of yel­low daf­fodils bloom­ing in places I did­n’t even plant them, I become present in nature. It’s a calm­ing and stress-reliev­ing feel­ing to be in touch with nature.

In my art­work, I cre­ate my impres­sions and remem­brances of the feel­ings I had when alone with nature. My land­scape paint­ings, aren’t recre­ations of the scenes, but rather an expres­sion of the emo­tions I had while com­muning with nature. My cop­per sculp­tur­al works are sym­bol­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Native Amer­i­can spir­it guides, par­tic­u­lar­ly heal­ing guides that help with bal­anc­ing our spir­i­tu­al, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal health. The encaus­tics, nature in theme, play on the theme ‘Be in Touch’, being very tex­tur­al.

Look deep into nature and then you will under­stand every­thing bet­ter. – Albert Ein­stein

 

< Left: Top — Sun­scape, cen­ter — the Crow Saith, Bot­tom — Bod­hi Beleaf