Art making as part of individual resilience (Εdited)

“Painting and doing art both provide a space where the past and the present meet and dialogue, but also, ground us in the moment to moment experience of engaging with the activity” Tonya Alexandri

Today I am sharing a painting I have been recently working on and some ideas that I have jotted down during readings and “listenings” over these few weeks. These are ideas that have either resonated with me or have provided food for thought.

“The past is in the present; it’s in our neurobiology; impacting us even in our sleep…” Steven C. Haynes

“Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not.” Ian McEwan

“In recalling my childhood I like to picture myself as a beehive to which various simple obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life, generously enriching my character with their own experience. Often this honey was dirty and bitter, but every scrap of knowledge was honey all the same.” (My Childhood, Maxim Gorky)

“If a child has the mental representation of the world as also good, this is an advantage. When children give up hope they close up; they are not receptive” Bruce Perry

“Recognise what’s true. Keep faith with what you know is true. It’s fundamental.” Rick Hanson

“I want to live in a place where strangers rush to help someone in distress.” Ian McEwan

“To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour, is just a speck in the universe of possible things. And even this universe may be a speck in a multitude of actual and possible universes.”  Ian McEwan

“The danger in any conversation about resilience, if it’s only individual, made personal, it ends up being a bypass of social conditions. I think of mindfulness [ability to know what’s happening as it is happening] as one powerful interpersonal resource that supports resilience.” David Treleaven

“Breath is not always neutral to people who carry trauma.. it’s helpful to focus on a resourceful anchor of attention.” David Treleaven

In terms of polarization: “When we are in our window of tolerance [Dan Siegel] we can be more nuanced; we can be with complexity.” David Treleaven

“There’s a wonderful core; we need to allow that core to express itself…. The education of humanity that we’re a good species… Propaganda is all about threat…” Stephen Porges

“Numbness of body is almost  a goal of our society. We pay a price for that. We get disease.” Stephen Porges

“Εγκλωβισμένοι πρωτίστως σ’ ένα πολιτικό «σου ‘πα – μου ‘πες» χωρίς αρχή, μέση και τέλος, είναι φυσικό επόμενο πλέον να αντιδρούμε σαν τα σκυλάκια του Παβλόφ και να μην αναγνωρίζουμε στον πολιτικό μας αντίπαλο καμία ανθρώπινη ιδιότητα, καμία δημόσια αρετή, κανένα ιδιωτικό χάρισμα. Δεν χρειάζεται να σου ανοίξουν την καρδιά και να σου την ξεσκονίσουν προκειμένου να πάρεις χαμπάρι ότι αυτός ο δρόμος δεν σε βγάζει πολύ μακριά.” (Τα Νέα, Πέτρος Τατσόπουλος, συγγραφέας)