Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross

CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST. IT STATES SO MANY THINGS I BELIEVE ABOUT ART. For me, art is a ‘MUST’ do activity. It keeps me CENTRED, expresses concepts or thoughts that otherwise may disappear into the ether. It KEEPS my AGING HANDS and brain dexterous. I create EVERY DAY. It may be a sketch, painting or other VISUAL art; or WRITING a chapter in a story or development of a new character; it may be slapping together a COLLÁGE from found materials; or knitting a row or two on a NEEDLEWORK project; it might be FOOD preparation or INVENTING a new vegan dish to sustain our health. I create for the FULFILLMENT of creating SOMETHING from NOTHING .

The author states that “Art is NOT a LUXURY for our downtime, but an important CONTRIBUTOR to physical and mental WELL-BEING”, says Susan Magsamen, co-author of an upcoming book on the new field of neuroaesthetics, which studies the brain’s responses to art. Book: This is Your Brain on Art – Penguin Books.

To Magsamen, founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, her artistic pursuits are ABOUT FAR MORE THAN HOBBIES. “I need it for my SOUL and my HEALTH and my SURVIVAL,” she says. “It’s not a NICE to have, it’s a HAVE to have.”