Heroes Not Zombies

Isn’t this what art does? Each work of art is the creation of a person who was seeing and feeling something. It’s the result of an individual, unique experience which conveys something perceived and something felt.

As Van Gogh writes, we see nature through our own temperament. I’m sure you’ll have had experiences like that. An upset, a grieving, a sadness, a hurt which colours every waking moment and permeates every dream. In that “temperament”, nothing pleases, nothing seems beautiful or wonderful. Or, the reverse, where we are in a state of joy and security and delight, where we find beauty everywhere and even the mundane seems enchanted.

So this is what art does – the great artist (painter, sculptor, musician, writer, poet) turns their experience into a work of, what Deleuze referred to as, sensation. A sensation so filled with precepts and affects that many years later the viewer, listener, reader, can be touched by that very sensation and, perhaps see the world in some way like the artist did, but most importantly will feel something of what the artist felt.

I think it was the psychiatrist, Dan Siegel, who wrote about a patient who didn’t say, “thank you, I was listened to”, but “I felt, felt”. We want to be understood, to be seen and heard, but at a deeper level, what really counts, is feeling….when we have that experience of sharing a feeling we know we have touched something deep, something deep. We know we’ve made a soul connection.