What is the relationship of art to guidance or spirituality?  In my otherwise hectic and highly earth-bound life, I find myself most at peace when I am painting (a hobby I have had since college). I find that when I am painting, I am calmer, more centered and focused. Somewhat like meditation, but with more direction toward the topic of the painting. I have an urge to paint, so I see that guidance is leading me toward the act of painting.  But why? Is it merely a means of calming me, centering my otherwise chaotic spirit? Or is it telling me that this is my true vocation, my "purpose" in life here on the planetoid. In any case, what value does art have? It is essentially a personal, self-centered activity, which would seem to be in contradiction to the PUL centric karmic mechanism. So, if I do bad art, am I in for bad art in a future life? Certainly, truly trancendent art is considered highly spiritual and even sublime. Ack, I am starting to eat my own tail here. Help me out.

I don't think there's a need to get quite so analytical about what we do and why we do it.  You enjoy it and it makes you calm, relaxed, and focused.  I bet you even lose yourself while you're painting, kind of like how we can drive a car but be lost in our thoughts and get a lot of thinking accomplished!  Activities that can put us in that kind of reverie, relaxed, thoughtful state are good for us, we need that.  We need that downtime the same way we needed it as children when we played or daydreamed.  When you have an urge to paint, it's likely some part of your being (you, your guidance) that's moving you toward that state of being because you've needed it.  It has a way of reminding you of an activity you love that holds you in that state.  It's likely that at some point you did, felt, or thought something which needed that personal time and so it works as a process to nudge us toward a craving, idea, or urge that puts us in that state.  Maybe you've been denying yourself some much-needed mental/spiritual time!

Hey Bardo,

To me, art is what it's all about; our personality. We all already love, some just may not know. But it's how we love that makes us special; what does our love feel like, how do we express it...
There are lots of beautiful ways

anyway, have a nice day,
Vagabound

So...has  a piece of art (any kind) ever moved you to a higher place? Have you been deeply moved in a spiritual way when you entered a beautiful cathedral? Has a piece of music lifted you closer to God? If the practice of art is merely to keep the artist calm and busy, how do we account for the power of the result? Of course, the greatest artists were and are possessed by thier art, and not always in a healthy way. Vicky, I get your point, at least in my case. Art as therapy is a well trodden path.  But at its very highest and best, art seems to be the nearest approximation to oneness with God that we can experience on the earth plain. Yet, so many artists have burned (metaphorically and literally) themselves out in the making of it.

Well if you're going to get technical about it, you can call anything "art".  I can call my writing art.  I can call my yard care "art".  But then again all we're doing is talking semantics.  As far as being lifted closer to God, that's going to be a subjective interpretation by the individual and isn't something that can be qualified. 

I didn't say that the practice of art is merely to keep the artist calm and busy...I meant that doing something you love and doing it with passion...it puts you into a certain state of being...and it's that state of being in which your energy feels most calm, pure, happy, loving, etc.  It's that quality which draws others to you and by extension to the "art" you do, whatever it may be. 

I think maybe the point you're trying to describe, Bardo, is the energy that gets put into a project, and do others sense and feel that energy and are they moved by it? 

What do you think of this example...there's a favorite song of mine by my guys, BNL..."Peterborough and the Kawarthas".  The first time I heard it, I couldn't stop crying.  Each time I heard it, no matter where I was, who I was with, or what kind of mood I was in, that song just moved me so much that I literally felt this energy change at my crown chakra and it moved me to tears.  It all made sense to me when I eventually discovered what was put into the meaning and significance of the song by the person who wrote it. I know that I was picking up on the energy he gave to that song.  So Bardo, what you mentioned earlier in another thread about feeling the essence of something...this is an example of that I think.  Music is my favorite art form of all.  Nothing moves me like music. 

   There comes a point in our growth when it becomes less about "learning" and remembering, and becomes more about Co-Creating in a creative, joyful endeavor.  For the sheer joy and beauty of creating.  We become Creators of other Universes, realities, and Consciousnesses to grow in same, perpetuating this ever expanding process into infinity. 

  Our creative expression here, while limited, is potentially important and helps us to better know those necessary proportions of harmony, of relative mixing of this and that consciousness, this and that note or tone or color to create a beautiful Whole. 

   Blessed be the artist, writer, and the musician who creates out of real Self expression and from their inner core, and not out of vainglory or just seeking the attention of others, for they have taken a very helpful step towards that becoming a true and full Co-Creator with the Source.  If, hand and hand with PUL they walk, they will become one of the many Painters that work with and along side their Creators who were and are Artists in their very depths.   

I agree about music. Although I sometimes feel manipulated when I am so easily moved by a piece of music.  Much harder to do with a visual art. But I see your point about getting what the artist put into a piece, and the essence of the thing. As to BNL, the theme to Bing Bang Theory rocks! We wander around our house singing it all the time. I guess that does not qualify as being real BNL fans, but they are profiting by it, so good on them!

How can you feel manipulated by being moved by a piece of music??  You know whose music I love and am moved by more than anyone else's?  Cat Stevens.  Yeah, I know he changed his name, but he'll always just be Cat Stevens to me.  The man is a musical genious as far as I'm concerned.  Brilliant voice, lyrics, and melody.  I don't feel manipulated just because his music is/was huge. 

I'll have to google the jello pudding commercial song that BNL also did and PM it to you Bardo.  Hey, you gotta promote yourself anyway you can when you're an artist, right?   

:)

I feel manipulated when I turn on the radio and hear a piece of music, classical or modern that paints a picture contrary to my desired state.  Then I turn off the radio.  Strange, I know, but that is when I know that I shouldn't be listening to the radio at that time. 

I certainly get what both you and Justin are saying about art, although predictably, you are both coming from different angles. Justin, you are saying (if I understand you), bless the artist who creates as an act of giving, in order to contribute to the canvas of creation (this world or another). But you caution against creation for the sake of self satisfaction, vainglory or, dare I say it, fame.  How many artists, of even the highest caliber, can separate the two motivations?

Vicky, of course your writing is art. Any act of self-expression is art. That is not being technical. But that is a big can of worms, and the generally accepted wisdom seems to feel that there is good art and bad art. High art and low art. As to Cat Stevens, he was on my stack of LPs on the record player in college, always ready to entertain when I had a visitor in my dorm room. Also on the stack were James Taylor and Van Morrison. Good memories!

I don't see anything wrong with self satisfaction.  We're all learning as we go here in life.  If someone is inspired to do something because of the satisfaction they feel in doing it, that in itself can move that person beyond anything they could have predicted it would.  I think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Any it's beautiful when we feel a connection to someone else or what they have created or shared or moved us with.  Generally speaking, yes most of us view good and bad, high and low with the same ideas and ideals.  But I think the true nature of what moves us isn't in the artful expression but is really in our interpretation of it, and it may be something as simple as being in a good mood, or being in the right place at the right time.  Sometimes I'm moved by something one day but not moved by it the next.  So why is that?  It says more about me and the state I'm in than it does about the thing itself, doesn't it?

The eye of the beholder. aka the intepreter. And you are absolutely right about the importance of what you bring to a piece of art (or work, or play or whatever).
One of the things I like to do is wander through antique stores with my wife. I tend to focus on the art, and I am often moved by the pieces of art; paintings, drawings, sculpture, whatever; that I find stuck away in the corners. I look at the piece, and sometimes I get a feeling for how much the artist put into it, and what it might have meant to them. I sometimes buy these works, even though they may not see the light of day in our house.  I may keep them down in my studio, and pay private respect to what the artist was trying to do. Sort of an art rescue or retrieval, if you will. A couple of these lost pieces have ended up in our collection, and are on display upstairs.

I'd say that maybe you really are sensing the spirit and energy of the person who created it.  I know I can sense energy quite a bit, especially in a room, house, etc.  Tell me, I bet you've also been able to sense energy just from looking at someone's picture, haven't you?  I doubt that it's just about what the person was feeling when they had the picture taken.  I think it's being able to see beyond that, being able to connect beyond the medium, beyond the physical item, and even beyond what gets "recorded" in the moment.  It's a facinating topic, how we connect with other people's energy. 

I don't know if I get a strong sense from a picture. I feel like I get a sense of them from their expression, body language, the setting of the picture and all that. I don't know if it has anything to do with thier current energy. Maybe. Again, I wish I had just a bit of your awareness.

I appreciate that.  I wish you did too, it would make it funner to talk about these things : )   I sometimes feel stuck trying to talk about what I feel and sense.  But I have a friend in town here that I'm just getting to know and I'm learning a lot from her, although she says she's learning from me too.  I like how simple she put it when she said that you know how you can watch people talking or you listen to someone talking to you, and you're half listening but also half just tuning into them and it has nothing to do with the conversation?  That sense of divided attention is what happens when we move some of our awareness away from the logic (listening to the conversation) and toward intuition.  Intuition is just using your sense of feeling to give you information, rather than your physical senses. 

What works for me, if I can explain it well enough, is especially useful with photos of a person, either a physical photo or bringing them up in my mind.  What I "do" is actually feel something from me move toward them, sort of a reaching-out sensation.  It bridges a feeling of energy connection and that channel feels/acts like a real connection, sort of like how the telephone works.  Thoughts and feelings get conveyed, or things can be sensed.  I use it more often to bridge a connection with someone I want to just feel and communicate with who I love and miss.  Whether they truely receive it isn't what I focus on, although if someone is especially close to me they do sense and can validate it for me in some way.  What I focus on is the energy state which it makes me feel, because then what I'm actually feeling, thinking, and saying is truely coming from my heart and that's all that really matters.  That heart energy is so powerful.  I have faith that the message and meaning get conveyed to that person in whatever form it takes, in the best way to reach that person, on whatever level they can receive it.  Part of it is due to my intention in my heart-felt message, but part too is because of the nature of the emotion and connection.  It sounds much more complicated trying to describe it than it actually is.  I think my level of emotional ability has a lot to do with it.  Maybe emotion makes it easy for me to detach from the logical side over to the intuitive side.

If i could please limit some comments to just painting, architecture, and other visual arts --

Visual art can put us in contact with our spirit and with our guides because it was originally made with their help, so to speak. It can go beyond personality, personhood, individualness. Images can bypass any shortcomings of words and open a flow of our true selves into the spiritual.

We have so many aspects to who we are that we don't need to feel guilty about the fraction of our lives that is used for making or enjoying art. Good art has a spiritual purpose. It can use symbollic forms and colors, it can present metaphorical subjects, it can open a flow back to prime spirit.

Once as a painter I finally allowed my guidance to take over. I set up the art supplies of paints and canvas and then stepped back and asked guidance to take over. Time flew. Gradually I got a painting of a metaphor for some trials of my life, a misty scene with a purpose that was a mystery for several years but now is known to me (while others squint at it and say "That's interesting." (-: ) It was a revelation!

Becoming meditative while painting was the big step.

Keep painting, Bardo !   :)

Bets