Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song

I am a Leonard Cohen fan and have been for decades. I have 2 recent paintings titled Suzanne takes you down…..referring to one of his early well-loved songs about his muse.

What struck me about the documentary movie was how much I resonated with his artistic journey. Being a sensitive artist Leonard Cohen was often awkward socially and basically a quiet inward man. He seemed reluctant and uneasy when talking about his songwriting and meaning of the songs. I saw Leonard’s loss for words like so many artists because the act of creating is an intuitive process that defies words. It is a body and soul felt experience, flowing from a transcendent source that is undefinable and indescribable.

It seemed that Leonard tried to make sense of his songs and his uniquely personal expression as an after thought and in hind sight for the critics and his audiences. But, even then, it did not feel like he could express in words in a very clear way what it felt like or meant to tap into the essence of his own creativity.

I took comfort in the fact that he spent 6 yeas at a Buddhist monastery which helped quell his existential anxiety. I also understood it when he said that sometimes a good day is putting 2 words that he liken down on paper.

Leonard Cohen reaffirmed for me that as artists we create because we have to, it is consuming and difficult and we can never expect an outcome.

Suzanne Jacquot

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THE NEUROSICIENCE OF BEING INSPIRED BY ART

Joan Mitchell, River, Oil on canvas, 1989

Do you recall a time when a work of art really touched you? Did you think what brilliant technique, what profound inspiration? Was it an experience that touched your soul, or stayed in your thoughts about it all day long? Did witnessing a great work of art make you feel an upswell of emotion, gain an epiphany, or even contemplate society?

Now, for the first time, scientists believe that they may have found a new clue to the actual processes that happen in the brain when we experience this sensation of being inspired.

Our brains react to the art and emit certain brain waves.

In a scientific article by Ryan Standifird, scientists at the Breda University of Applied Sciences and Tilburg University in the Netherlands, as well as the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt, Germany conducted a series of experiments on subjects whose brains were being monitored by an electroencephalography (EEG) cap.

During the experiments, these subjects were shown pieces of artwork, and then were asked to rate how appealing the art piece was to them.

The result?

The more appealing a work of art, the more gamma brain waves were created!

It actually took a second or two for the viewer to process the image and extract the underlying meaning behind it. It’s that deeper meaning that scientists believe is the cause of these brain waves, which leads to the conclusion that this phenomenon is tied to processing and interpreting this deeper, complex meaning.

"We don't just passively perceive art, but engage in a process of discovery that can last several seconds,” said Edward A. Vessel, research associate at the MPIEA and co-author of the study. “We try out different interpretations and meanings. This process takes time to develop, and can continue for many seconds as a viewer savors the feeling of engaging with art."

Gamma waves have historically been shown to help people experience:

• More tendency towards kindness and understanding

• Enhanced peace and stability

• Powerful feelings of oneness

• Feelings of bliss and joy

Recent studies out of MIT have even shown that exposure to gamma waves resulted in reduced amyloid brain plaque in subjects. The accumulation of this brain plaque is believed to play a major role in the onset of cognitive disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s.

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During the artwork experiment mentioned above, the scientists made another interesting discovery:

Alpha brain waves were also seen to spike on pieces of art that were…

…either very appealing or very unappealing!

Alpha waves are the brain waves of focus and concentration, so their presence indicates that the more someone liked or disliked a piece of art, the more they focused on it.

If we really like something, we focus on it and appreciate it.

But what some might find surprising is that…

…if we really dislike something, we also tend to focus on it.

The evidence of these alpha spikes when we interact with things that we really like and things that we really don’t like are echoed in how we live our lives.

Centerpointe’s late founder, Bill Harris, used to say:

“Your focus determines what happens in your life.” ~Bill Harris

WHAT ART IMAGE INSPIRES YOU?!

Thanks to Centerpointe for sharing the neuroscience of art.

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Let me know your thoughts and experiences on being inspired by art! Thank you for reading my BLOG.

Suzanne

ABSTRACT ART COMMUNITY

If you love abstract art, where do you go to learn about it? Where do you go to see abstract artists at work? Where do you go to see what abstract artists are thinking? Where do you go to buy abstract art?

If you want to learn about abstract art, how do you find a class, videos on technique? Where do you go to find a mentor? Where do you find like minded artists? Where can you get regular inspiration and ideas? Where do you learn about presenting yourself and pricing and selling your work?

ARTLab Playgound Membership is online abstract artist community in its second year and growing. It is a wonderful, intelligent virtual platform that I designed to answer some of the above questions and provide abstract artists and those interested in abstract art, a place to learn, grow, be inspired and to share and network.

As an example, ARTLab has the following (AND, a lot more):

• Abstract Artist Portfolio — over 125 well respected artists world wide and each month new artists are added.

• ART CHATS - a library of monthly videos on Abstract Art history, artists, movements, art Critiques, etc.

• Skill Building - a library of monthly studio practice demonstrations.

• Artists at work — short clips of artists working as well as images of artist studios

• A library of Quotes and Inspirations from other artists, writers, and philosophers

• Reference materials for viewing abstract art, purchasing supplies, ways to work with your painting, etc..

ARTLab Playground Membership Subscription Info

I hope you will give it a try and then give it as a gift to all those art lovers you know!!!

Thank you so much! Suzanne

If you have any questions, please email me by submitting the form below.

PRICING ART WORK

Pricing art is different from making art. Making art is about the individual personal creative process, experiences that come from within.  Pricing art for sale is about what's happening on the outside, in the real world where things are bought and sold for money, and where market forces dictate in large part how much those things are worth. 

Art prices are not pulled out of thin air. When you price your art, you must be able to show that your prices make sense, that they're fair and justified with respect to certain art criteria such as the depth of your resume, your previous sales history and the particulars of the market where you sell.

EVALUATE YOUR SITUATION

1.     Look at the history of selling your art and the price range. And the consistency of selling in this range.

2.     What is your level of experience?  How many years have you been working professionally as an artist.

3.    Where you have had shows, how many solo?  How many group?  

4.    Do you already have gallery representation?  If so, where?  Is the gallery is well known and in a large art or metropolitan area?  (The area where you show your art has a value.)

5.    Define your type of art. What kind of art do you make? What are its physical characteristics? In what ways is it similar to other art? How do you categorize it? If you paint abstracts, for example, what kind of abstracts, how would you describe them? This is the type of art you generally want to focus on for comparison purposes.

6.    Note similarities and differences of your art to others: ie., size, shape, medium, weight, subject matter, colors, the time it takes you to make it, when it was made, how long you've been making that type of art, how many you've made, who your audience is, and so on.

7.    Is your art light and decorative or is it soulful and serious as in meaning and philosophy?  In other words, what are you aspiring to do? 

8.    Does it appeal to a large number of people or only a few?

9.    Is the work easy to experience or hard, esoteric, inaccessible, idiosyncratic?

10.     How does your art relate to the context of art history and other masters?

11.     Do you sell locally, regionally, nationally or internationally?

Your job is to explore your art, your intentions, your goals, and get to know your market, keep an open mind, find similar art, find the artists who make it and have similar experience and qualifications to yours, and see what they charge for their art and why.

Hope this helps begin the process of pricing art.

Suzanne

If you have any questions, please email me below.

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