1. Enjoy a therapeutic museum or gallery afternoon.
With pen and notebook, take a walk through a local museum looking for works of art that seem to reflect what you are feeling right now. At each one you find, sit and quietly spend time with it: its colors, its emotions, what the artist might be trying evoke or capture. Write what you see and what you feel the work of art is saying to you about your current feelings. Take a moment after you are done writing to just sit again with the work of art. Perhaps silently thank the artist for his or her understanding. Then go on to find a few more works that speak to your current frame of mind.
2. Do an Internet art recharge.
On a day that
you can’t go to a gallery or museum to view art therapeutically, take a short
break from work or family obligations to look for two or three works of art on
the Internet. Visit the websites of some of the world’s great museums and
galleries, or go to individual artists’ sites. You can also find photographs on
sites devoted to nature or travel. Take some time with each image and relate it
to what you are feeling or to a current life issue, and see what that image
says to you. Keep an online journal of all your images so you can revisit them
at other times when you need to recharge.
3. Take a snapshot moment: Art is everywhere!
Sometimes we need to process our feelings and rejuvenate ourselves, but we
don’t have time or are not in the right place to visit a museum or even surf
the Internet for therapeutic images. This is the perfect opportunity to realize
that we can find art all around us. Our offices and homes have been designed by
architects; our backyards or the view out our windows are potential
photographs. Everything around us has a shape, a form, a color, a tone. Take a
moment to look at what is right in front of you as a work of art—the library
clock on the wall that is ticking and makes you feel for a moment that you are
in a past century, the bold colors at the fast-food restaurant where you are
standing in line for a sandwich, the sharp angles of the receptionist’s desk at
the dentist’s office. Make a mental note of the image and notice whether the
act of observing or appreciating it alters your mood or frame of mind. Take a
snapshot with your mobile phone in case you want a reminder of the experience.
