This is your brain on ART!

Help me! 

      I’m addicted to arts and crafts. 

It happened again. I had an entire day ahead of me wherein I could use my vast array of knowledge to turn the hearts of man toward REVOLUTION! What did I do instead? 

That’s right. I covered my house in about a thousand paper snowflakes.

I believe that for some of us art becomes a bit of a neurosis. I compulsively create so I don’t have to “feel feelings”, but is that really a bad thing? I can think of many more destructive vices. Gambling, pyromania, totalitarianism.... but we aren't children anymore. We can’t play around with those things. 

Sure, painting pretty pictures or making things with paper mâché may sound like a convenient way to sedate a psychopath, but I believe it is the essence of building a finely tuned mental machine. 

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time” - Thomas Merton

That is probably the most accurate definition of art I have ever heard. I couldn't have said it better myself. I think I should have. From now on, I said that. That is a quote by me, Ruby the Wretched...

{Note from the Editor: The above mentioned quote will be noted in the general literary and legal

world as it was originally.  Let us not have copyright issues and simply humor Ruby's wretched delusions of grandeur).

Upon further probing I began to speculate that I could use art therapy to my nefarious advantage; that I could mold the grey matter of my unsuspecting victims and change their silly notions of “morality.” Alas I am dreadfully mistaken. Art is actually GOOD for the brain.

I was aghast to discover that it’s just plain science. “[Art] introduces the brain to diverse cognitive skills that help us unravel intricate problems,” an article by Gran Ekhart suggests

Hmm. How could being intuitive benefit Ruby the Wretched? Senior Ekhart goes on to say; “Art, in thought and through the creative processes, activates the imaginative and creative side, the spatial and intuitive side of our brain. Art jumps over the process of linear and logical thinking. It trains the brain to shift into thinking differently, of broaching old problems in new ways”

Because I am so VERY good at drawing conclusions, I realized this can only mean one thing: this is the secret ingredient for teaching myself to read minds.  

Just imagine, my biscuits, once I am clairvoyant I will be UNSTOPPABLE!

*Ahem* Pardon me. 

If you too want to fine tune your cerebral wrecking ball I would suggest these art therapy exercises; 

1.Get Your Feet Wet: Here is an exercise from the brilliant Lucia Capacchione. It’s a good jumping-off point if you’re not quite sure what the point is
http://www.healthy.net/creativejournal/feelnow.htm

2. DEFACE an Existing Image: Feeling some pent up anger? Don’t exact bloody revenge (leave that to us mad scientists- you’re just not ready). Destroy something in a therapeutic (and non-felonious) way; select a pretty face from a magazine and graffiti it. Rip a few pages out of a 50 cent thrift store book and alter them to match your current level of emotional dysfunction. The sky is limit. 

Remember what our friend Pablo Picasso said; 

“good artists copy, great artists steal.”

3. Scribble Time: Remember when you were a little kid and you really, really wanted to draw on the walls, but you knew your mom would kill you? It’s time to cuddle that child like a kitten. Tape up some paper (I’m poor so I’ve cut up and used paper grocery bags) and Scribble to your Hearts Content. Trust me, scribbling is the most amazing thing. You may not know it yet but your heart definitely desires this. Afterward take a step back and look at the colors you used, then refer to this; 

  

Welp, there you go. This will get you started. After you’ve realized how RIGHT I am, I will be back with more exercises. Also, if you are particularly lucky I will tell you about the time I burned down a Circus and liberated a lion. It’s a great story...

Art on my friends. 

Love, Ruby the WRETCHED

23 Tips from Famous Authors for New and Emerging Writers

I.

“I have advice for people who want to write. I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a reader. It’s the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it’s for only half an hour — write, write, write.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

II.

“Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.” ― William Faulkner

III.

“Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don’t ­really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, “how to” books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.” ― Hilary Mantel

IV.

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.” ― Neil Gaiman

V.

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.” ― Anne Lamott