Art With Alex

Who would have thought that all of the Arts are a natural way out of depression?. Depression is the most common widespread malady affection Canadians. If you don’t have access to a Psychiatrist, or Counselor, and good friends aren’t helping, and you don’t want to take pills what can you do? We all have UPS and DOWNS (that’s natural, sort of like teeter/totters!) but when the downs are persistent it can ‘get you down’ No joke!. Question? How do you get yourself down? How do you do that? What are you thinking about? Are they negative, worrying, angry thoughts either about the past or the future? Any of that kind of thinking if you stick with it will depress you. All too often WE DEPRESS OURSELVES with our own thinking. How can you turn off those thoughts and turn to new thoughts?

One way is ACTION, by getting up and start doing something else. Oh yes chores might bore you. Learning something new (whatever it is) is a wonderful highway out of depression! We can do it. We’ve all done it before. learned to do something! It’s strange, but it involves using OUR COMMON SENSE or SENSES: eyes, ears, touch and movement. All of the arts awaken and sharpen our SENSES so we see more, hear more, feel more and enjoy movement. Amazingly all of the arts involve stirring up the right side of our brain into activity. Amazingly there is no time-sense in the right side of our brain; ‘time flies by’ like when we were kids, active, playing, imaging.

Some Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Clinics, assisted by large research grants by major Corporations are beginning to use the arts in the treatment of depression. We can do some of that for ourselves. It’s just using our COMMON SENSE…err… SENSES..

Written by
Alex Gigeroff

Posted by
Brian Hurlburt

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LIVE A BALANCED LIFE

Years ago I read a little book, ‘All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten’ by Robert Fulghum (Easily readable, available at the Yarmouth Library). In there is a sentence which has clung to my mind like a burr and keeps popping up in my thoughts. Here it is: “Live a balanced life –-learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some” Whoosh!!!!

Think about that carefully. A balanced Life? How? Eight ingredients: learn, think, draw, paint, sing, dance, play and work. Do some of each of those every day.

Notice that 4 of those, half of them, point towards ‘the arts’—painting, drawing, singing, and dancing. Each of those involves the spirit of PLAY. We learn more and learn more easily when we play. That covers six of the eight elements, doesn’t it?

Now if we take that approach, that attitude, that creative frame of mind into our THINKING and WORKING, how much better can we do both of those activities. So we approach and enter into our ‘thinking’ and “working’ creatively, playfully!!!

I think there is great wisdom in that simple advice. It can affect our spirit, our mind set, our mental health, It makes living more enjoyable without buying anything, a wonderful antidote to our consumer society that swamps us on every side.

And hey, we all learned that as little kids. We have already experienced it and lived it. All we need to do is remind ourselves and each other the lesson now and again.

As ever, Alex

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There is something infinitely sweet and charming about watching those who have never painted before painting their first canvases. It is like watching a baby take its first steps or learning to talk, the two most difficult things any of us learn. How they try, stumble, and try again. It is the determination to try and keep trying that warms my heart and fascinates me. (It is those who want instant success who give up oh too soon. They expect too much of themselves and probably everyone else around them.

There are painters who are categorized as ‘naive’, or ‘naif’ in French. These are painters who never went to Art School, or formally studied drawing, anatomy, composition, design or colour theory. They do not carry the whole baggage of Art History or try to fuse all their learning into a product. As a result their work appears with a refreshing vision, charmingly awkward, loaded with unrefined colour, strong patterning, simplicity rather than subtlety. There is an innocence, a spirit of joyfulness and so much more than words can express in their work. There are galleries around the world devoted to their work. Henri Rousseau is perhaps one of the best known. Edna Durkee (bless her memory) comes to mind among the Yarmouth Artists.

Along this vein, perhaps some of you know of my son Andre Haines, who grew up in Yarmouth and best remembered for his work at Th’YARC with mustical comedy, music voice teacher, cabaret writer producer, composer and his original musical The Baltimore produced here. Over the past few years he has turned his attention to painting with the same zeal he brings to acting, singing, Theatre and Musical Comedy.

If you would like to see some of his current work
Click Here to Visit Andre’s Web Site. I like to think that the Garson sisters, Trudi and Paula (fondly remembered) would be smiling recalling the little boy who “played” in their studio along with many other Yarmouth kids so very long ago.
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(Post submitted by Brian Hurlburt on behalf of Alex Gigeroff)

Testing

Acrylics can be watered down to the point where they look like watercolours.  Is that what you want?  OK, but, if you want them to glow full colour, as deep and as rich as they can get, then “ya gotta get wid a da wadda”.  That means you have to get your brush as dry as you can.  Once you clean your brush with water, dry your brush out two or three times with a cloth, squeezing out as much water as you can.  Then load up your brush with the paint colour you want to use. and never try to ’stretch out the paint’ with any ‘little dip into water’.  Water thins out the paint which then loses its covering power.  Worse, using thinned out paint may look like you have just the colour you want for a few minutes, but as it dries it sinks into any colour that is underneath and you’ll see the colour change and grow duller. 

Cheaper quality paints can be put out an hour or two before you start using them so some evaporation has already happened and the paint is drier, thicker.  LIQUITEX produces a professional acrylic paint labelled ’HEAVY BODY’ which has a wonderful covering  capacity that keeps the colour true to what you put down on the canvas if you remember to use NO WATER.   Treat yourself to a tube or two and experiment.

A painter friend of mine has been using this method for a few years and his canvases dance with strong rich colours in large areas and small.  Acrylics used in this way can have the vibrancy almost approaching oil paints.  If you want your acrylic colours to sing out with a strong clear voice try using drier pigments.  Happy Experimenting!!!