Art as Healing
The therapeutic and restorative power of creating and viewing art.
Creating art is healing practice. The process of gathering materials, preparing pigments, and applying designs calms the mind and connects the artist to country and ancestors. Art heals both maker and viewer.
When I paint, I feel my spirit become calm. The ancestors guide my hand.
Art therapy in Aboriginal communities draws on traditional healing understanding.
Contemporary Practice
Written about in
- What Aboriginal tradition says about grief
Making art is treated as remedy in a practical sense: gathering the materials, grinding the ochre, laying down the design settles the maker. It is one of the few answers here a grieving person can begin alone, today.