HEALING POWER OF THE ARTS
Adenike's Arts and Amen Communivations are establishing Centers for Healing Arts, providing Natural, visual, performance, and communicative art to promote healing and encouragement to the spirit of all.
Our Healing Arts program incorporates visual, poetry, performance, and nature/environmental experiences, among other art forms, throughout the community as a means of learning, expression, memorializing, Health and healing for people, and those who may be suffering from trauma. The program strives to improve experiences and outcomes and to encourage a broader understanding of cultural diversity in health, trauma, and illness.
HEALING ARTS
A variety of fine art forms makes up the Healing Arts. There are arts to stimulate all 5 senses and the Spirit. Art was first a tribute to our creator. Art was also created as a tribute to the ancestors. Art was a way of expressing a memory, a mark or tribute. So the stimulation of the 5 senses create a memory. The sights, sounds, aromas, tastes, and textures are enhanced stimulated and inspired. When Art is on display it is meant to provide an experiential, thoughtful or, pleasing atmosphere. The use of nature, Cultivating a shrine memorial garden, The act of creating, or the appreciation of art, relating to the senses- The experience, appearance, and smells of flowers, herbs, fruits, and plants are very healing for mind body and spirit. Food is medicine. Music, dance, poetry, sculpture, etc. can also be medicine. Even the presentation of certain plants attract specific and necessary insects, like Bees or Butterflies. Trees provide shelter and refuge for many insects and animals in a habitat. Trees also attract the songs of Birds. Ancient societies Practiced art for spiritual, memorial and healing
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ART IN HEALING
The use of art in western medical treatment was first implemented from eastern healing arts in Ancient African healing temples, which incorporated art for the mind body and spirit using empirical senses, of visual, hearing, smell, taste, texture, and environmental landscapes to create a holistic environment in which ailments were treated and the state of mind was uplifted. The smells, taste and nutritive quality of herbs, roots, bark and fruit foods used as medicine were employed, along with touch, sounds, and dance. This knowledge began with melaninated people from the African diaspora, then was spread to the Asians, Greeks, then Romans which moved to be the Western world. In the 14th century, hospitals were operated by churches, which used paintings, frescoes, stained glass, music, sculpture, Architecture, and other mediums to communicate their teachings. Florence Nightingale’s Notes for Nursing, written in 1860, argues that patients require beauty and its effect is not only on the mind but also on the body. During the Depression, the Federal Art Project employed artists to paint murals in government hospitals. During the 1980s, hospitals began to use art as decorative elements with no particular attention to its therapeutic qualities. The early 1990s brought a newfound interest in the therapeutic qualities of art, resulting in a surge in evidence-based design, which studies the effect of the environment on healing.
According to The Center for Health Design, nearly 50 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. today have arts programs, and according to respondents of a 2003 survey, 96 percent of hospital arts programs are intended to “serve patients directly.” Fifty-five percent of the programs surveyed also present art to hospital staff as a way to reduce stress and improve patient care.
“Lifting the human spirit is one of the most important roles that art can play...”- - Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell Director & CEO, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
“on the vanguard of an important trend in holistic healing. I pray that the world will come to recognize that healing is not just limited to the time spent in a hospital, or on the operating table. Healing involves the entire environment and all of our senses.”
- - Christopher Radko, collector and donor
EXPERIENCING THE ARTS DIRECTLY INFLUENCES HEALING
- A 1993 survey found that people viewing nature scenes after heart surgery reported less anxiety and stress and needed less pain medication than those in control groups.
- Research in 2001 revealed that trauma and orthopedics patients who were exposed to visual arts and live music had shorter stays and needed significantly less pain relief than patients in control groups.
Excerpted from Kathy Hathorn and Upali Nanda, “A Guide to Evidence-based Art,” © The Center for Health Design 2008
- Natural healing techniques, such as Sun glancing, Grounding, and caring for plants and Animals, have proven success in lowering blood pressure, relieving mental health challenges such as PTSD, Depression, and anxiety and other stress-related mental health illnesses, as well as.
