AITC

ART IS THE CURE

Without realizing it at the time, art became my cure when I was about 17. Like a lot of people I was going through a very low time and didn’t know how to escape. Also like a lot of people, I wasn’t able to put how I felt into words, I felt trapped within myself. Unable to verbalize my thoughts, I turned to drawing them. I would sit there for hours copying things from comic books, learning how to draw more, then began creating my own characters who I used to tell stories through. They gave me a voice, a platform to get everything out of my system and a realistic escape from everything bringing me down. I taught myself how to colour the drawings in with water colour, then moved on to acrylic, spray-paint, stencils. Pandora’s Box was open and every new form of art I experimented with became a new escape, a new cure.

I used myspace as a stage to show people my paintings and the response I got was overwhelming. People were seeing my story unfold in my work and were beginning to understand me more, all the words I wanted to scream were there for people to see in the form of brush strokes.

The moment I realized how powerful art can be as a cure happened in the summer of 2007; I was contacted by a girl in America who had seen my work on myspace. She asked me about them, why I painted them, what the stories were behind them and I told her how it had helped me. I didn’t hear from her for a couple of days and then got a new message through. She told me her story, how she was battling depression and was resorting to self harming and attempted suicide a couple of times in previous months. After hearing my story she went to the shops, she used all the money she could find and bought paints, brushes, canvases, the lot. She locked herself in her room for a couple of days and painted, getting everything out of her system, experimenting with paint, letting her emotions and pain guide her.

She explained to me how much of an effect the experience had on her, she didn’t feel the need to self harm once as she was using a brush to get it out of her system instead of a razor blade. Painting gave her a new sense of hope and release and the email ended ‘thank you for saving my life’.

Since starting art is the cure in February I have heard dozens of different stories from people who have had similar experiences, all resulting in one conclusion, art saved their life. Its not just painting that people have turned to and its not just depression that art can cure. Creativity in any form can be a cure, from writing poetry and short stories, playing and writing music, drawing, skateboarding, etc. The potential to be creative is endless and everyone has the ability to create something. Art has helped people dealing with depression, addiction, self harming, autism, eating disorders, anger issues, mental health problems, battling cancer and dealing with the loss of a loved one.

The main goal for art is the cure is to inspire people to turn to creativity as a positive release of emotion and use art as your voice. Every body has the potential to create, everybody has the ability to become an inspiration to someone and everybody has a cure at their fingertips.

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