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!

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.

   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.   

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 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?

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 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.