Why is Art Important?

Why is Self Expression Important to Me?

Art is an anchor in my connection to myself. I was very young when I first doodled and painted, and wrote poetry to feel good, to feel better, and too let my feelings out. Long before any one told me it was a good idea, I just felt it. I wanted to be good, but as I got older, I could see the Mona Lisa and Renoir and Degas and all the masters and I was humbled by them.... So art was for me then, and not for any one else. When I paint, I see my heart in it, and I know that I need what I have created to remind me of who I am, and where I've been. It may not be more than abstract color strokes on a canvas, or a rough sketch of a human body, or four or five sentences describing the poignant pain of life... But it's got a little bit of me in it. 
As I've grown up, I've had a few mentors for my pen and paint brush. People who could have fed me structure and technique but instead saw what I started and encouraged me to finish it, and keep it, and try new ways of putting my heart on paper every time. Noel was one of those. I wouldn't be painting today if it weren't for Noel, because she really showed me that it doesn't really matter what your art means to any one else. It matters that it means something to you, and especially that doing it does something for you. When I paint it's away to see my feelings outside of myself and beyond language. It says the things that even I can't put into words. It also brings me closer to other people and makes more tangible the connections between us. What I paint in a room alone is different from what I paint in a room full of friends. Sometimes we can share pieces of this subjective experience that we other wise could not have. 
With out my art, I am not sure I would be here today. All my poetry, monologues, journals, collages, paintings, and sculptures served me in communicating with myself past present and future. I told myself a story of love, beauty, irony, and pain. I showed myself the redundant circles that I dance in through life, and it's helped me on many occasions grow into a better person. It was a way for me to be brutally honest with myself. I could tell myself, in a dark painting or sad poem, "Look, this is poison, you need to get away from this." and I could see that in the feelings I expressed in my art. I could tell myself, "There's more beauty to be found if you reach for it." And I could hear that, feel that in what I created. My outlets with out art would have only grown more dangerous and self-destructive. But KiAirah would not be KiAirah without art. 

People should share art openly because it holds a secret to part of what makes us human. It also brings us closer to seeing what other people experience in way that without art, we can not see. I always connect to people through art. We share music, we share movies, we share books, we share our favorites, and then, if I'm lucky, we have some of our own work to share too. Poetry, paintings, short stories, oral history, collages; even if it's just a piece or two, that helps me see who they are. Like food, our art is an indelible piece of our culture. In a hundred years, all this work that we are criticizing and feeling unsure of, this raw, new, naked work that our generation is doing, is going to be innovative and historical and change the face of art forever. Because we're getting closer to the inside, and that's part of who we are as people. That's a blessing. When we share art, as artists, we always grow from the experience and take a little something away. kind of like, when you meet some one that is an opportunity to meet a new part of yourself. When you see some one else's art, that is an opportunity to see something different in your art. We can not grow as artists without other artists.