Art and Play
By Ivy Gaiser
January 22, 2011
Art
and Play. The art of play. The playfulness of art. People play and I gladly lay
in a circle of giggly, goofy, gracious, gorgeous gemstones of life as we create
and destroy worlds of meaning and manifest miraculous mirrors of masquerade and
mystery. The art of the moment lay in its presence and participation in shared
vibratory glances and single-cell romances as I and You and We gladly dissipate
into everything and nothing and boundaries show themselves as thick chalk lines
ready to become dusty particles joining the sunbeam dance swirling down the
center of a brightly lit room.
I
play with words. This is my space where anything goes and nothing has to make
sense unless I want it to. I feel like it's easier to show my reactions to the
words Art and Play than to talk about my reactions. And since I'm reacting to
words, naturally I go into world-play. To play is to let go and abandon the
self to being embraced by the moment. To play is to view the world as possibility
rather than certainty. Art is essentially the same thing. To engage with
art-making is to abandon oneself to the present moment and just let it unfold
however it must at the time. Art is play. Color, texture, vibration,
exhalation. These things are both art and play.
Art
and play are about space-- Safe space where anything goes and nobody is foolish
or wrong. It is a space where beauty takes on a whole new meaning that
encompasses the good, the bad and the ugly as well as the aesthetically
pleasing. When I play I allow myself to be recreated from the inside out. When
I sit down to play with scissors and magazines and glue, or with paint or chalk
or yarn or ink, I say to myself that I deserve the joy of art/play. I deserve
to be immersed in the present moment. I deserve color and texture and beauty.
To engage in art/play is like giving my spirit an overdue massage. All the
kinks and tensions and bunched up knotty messes are gently unwound and allowed
some space to breathe and just be, without all the other nonsense of the daily
drama.
Specifically,
all of the knots and things that make being in a human body almost not worth
the trouble sometimes, can be removed and placed upon a canvas of some sort or
simply reversed into the ether. The knots can literally be sung right out of
the body. The knots are emotions, after all, and art is expression. Express
emotions=release=create space=unwind the knots=relax into presence.
I
spend a lot of time in my life making sounds on my 4-track, writing,
photographing interesting and beautiful things/people and occasionally pulling
out my suitcase full of art supplies to make collages or other forms of visual
art. For me art and play are the same thing, so making art is often playing,
and engaging in play is an art. Both are simply engaging creatively with the
present moment. In entering the present moment I am able to interface with my
otherwise sometimes difficult-to-deal-with emotions.
In
play I explore my imagination and all of the possibilities drifting side by side
inside of my mind and heart. The ways in which play manifests in my life are
endless. I love to explore the wilderness and all of the beauty expressed by
the natural world. There is nothing quite so satisfying as a day on the beach
or a mountain or a forest. Such places are ripe for uninhibited, joyful play,
and I feel free to nurture my child-like innocence in the wildness of nature. I
also spend time with friends playing to our hearts content. We wrestle and sing
and dance and play games. One of my favorite things to do with friends is to
play with words and sounds; writing exquisite corpses, playing games with sound
and voice. Bouncing off of one another
we create something unique between us in that moment.
Art
and play go hand in hand with human connection. We may never be able to fully
understand another person's piece of art or the process that they went through,
but we can connect with the fact that we all have something inside of us that
needs expression. We all have a voice that needs to be heard, no matter the
form it takes to get out and no matter who hears it in the end. It may just be
that the vibration needs to enter the atmosphere, regardless if any other
humans ever become aware of its existence. It is the shared experience of
having a creative process and engaging in the ever-present moment which
inevitably connects us to others, because in experiencing the moment, one
cannot help but become aware of a connectedness with all things sharing that
moment.
Play,
which again must inevitably happen outside of time and inside of the present
moment, is also an often fiercely interpersonal space to inhabit. When I am at
my most playful, I am at my most willing to engage with other humans as well as
with animals, plants, even inanimate objects. I am in a space of openness and
possibility, willing to see what the world has to offer me.
I
find others willingness to play a huge factor in choosing with whom I am going
to spend my time. If someone is always wearing their serious hat, then I don't
find myself drawn to that energy. I find it to be somewhat false and stiff. I
believe that those who refuse to engage with play are cheating themselves and
everyone around them out of a potentially uplifting experience. We must
acknowledge and embrace that joyful place within ourselves. To deny our
playfulness is to cut ourselves off from the world and the beauty and joy of
life itself. For many people the playful, carefree, joyful place is relegated
to the shadow side because they were told to “grow up”, or some other such
nonsense. Play for these people is equal to being childish, as opposed to
child-like. According to the Tao Te Ching, to be fully immersed in the moment
is indeed to be child-like. It is to be without the kind of self-consciousness
that stops us from being our authentic selves for fear that others may
disapprove.
Although
I equate art and play throughout this paper, I am also well aware that it is
not always a happy happy joy time making art, whereas play is generally a fun
time had by all involved. Sometimes the art process is painful, sorrowful,
heavy. Sometimes the emotions being expressed are dark or feel ugly. What comes
out is equally dark and heavy. Sometimes it is quite literally dark and heavy,
like say if I'm expressing some deep sadness or anger, it tends to come out in
thick, dark, messy colors and textures that mirror my feelings. The art screams
loud and clear when sometimes my voice is held hostage by fear. Or if my voice
is working, then a sorrowful song will float out of me, possibly even
accompanied by tears that otherwise would not have come. In this way art is
incredibly therapeutic for me. I usually feel much lighter in the chest and
shoulders after creating a darker piece of visual art, or writing some bit of
dark and murky poetry or prose or singing a ridiculously sad song. I have an
excellent, recent example of the way in which getting the thing, whatever it
may be, out is healing. I woke up from a terrifying dream several days
ago. Usually when awakening from a bad dream, it fades when sleep fades. It was
the exact opposite in this one case. I woke up and was instantly wide awake and
the scenario from the dream replayed over and over in my mind, terrorizing me
as I lay awake. Then the thought came to me that if I wrote it down, I wouldn't
have to think about it anymore. It's like, even though I wanted nothing more
than to get it out of my head, I also knew that I needed to remember it or
something, so the solution was to remove it from my head and place it on paper.
Eventually I was able to sleep after writing out the dream in my journal.
Immediately after writing it down I felt a little bit better. And as time went
by, I eventually went back to sleep and woke up many hours later without a
trace of the terror that I had been feeling in every bone in my body. I went on
to have a fabulous day. I truly believe that had I not written down my dream, I
would have just played it on repeat until I was exhausted and my whole self
hurt with it.
I
have not always been so at ease with art and playfulness as I am in my current
life. My teenage self was very attached to a serious demeanor that said to the
populace, “You really don't want to fuck with me. Back away slowly and nobody
gets hurt. I don't have time for you and your silly games. Don't you know the
world is a terrible place where bad stuff happens all the time? GET SERIOUS!” I
have since learned the value and importance of playfulness. I have learned the
value of joy. I now avidly practice the art of play on a regular basis. I sometimes
get swept back into that serious/aloof mask, but it is less often and not so
all-pervasive. It happens in moments of uncertainty and imbalance. FEAR. It is
fear that kills joy. It is fear that kills play and art and presence.
I
may be approaching adulthood in the eyes of society, but I will never be the
kind of adult who says things like, “grow up” or “act your age” to someone
simply because they are coming at life in a playful way. To me the beauty of
growing older is getting to choose what kind of person I am. I get to choose
which aspects of myself I like and want to cultivate, and I get to choose which
attitudes and presumptions to leave behind. At 27 years old I have friends who
call up and ask me if I want to come out and play. Yes please.
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