Article January 19, 2009 Issue

ART THAT HEALS/ARTISTS AS HEALERS

WARREN BOLON, SENIOR WRITER

The practice of art can have healing effects for the artist. I've interviewed a number of people who've found emotional and physical healing in part by pursuing art in some form. My own limited experience with brushes and palette knives tells me that creative work, when it's more about listening to that heavenly voice within than trying to make impressive statements, can be a thing of pure, unselfconscious joy. Rather than suffer for one's art, why not be bettered by doing it?

Perhaps not every artist will become a full-time prayer-based healer, as former opera singer (and this issue's lead article writer) Kari Mashos did. But anyone who consents to expressing the spiritual dimensions of the art already within—and who makes serving the Creator and blessing brother-sister creation "motif number one" in life—can be a healer, too. Unselfish love is involuntarily transparent to God's light, to thoughts that change things and change lives for the better. As Kari has found, "The more closely our thoughts and actions approximate the divine, the more healing rhythm there is in our lives." And doesn't the inner ear within each of us resonate to what Kari calls "the natural pulse of divine Soul"? (See "God's artistry," p. 7.)

In this issue you'll also find convincing evidence that spiritually motivated artists often have a healing practice embedded in their art-life. British actress Valerie Hermanni, for example, profiled by contributing editor Tony Lobl, has seen how being transparent to God's nature in her work brings healing—not only to her own physical and performance-related challenges, but also to her fellow performers.

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