Can art make you mindful?
Room to Breathe at Manchester Art Gallery
Last month I participated in a workshop by Louise Thompson, the Health and Wellbeing Manager at Manchester Art Gallery, UK. She trains arts managers how to incorporate mindfulness into their programming. The field of mindfulness in museums combines the science of mindfulness with the visually rich world of art to offer people a way to cultivate wellbeing in their everyday lives.
If you spend much time in the mindfulness space, as I do, some of the imagery starts to feel like, well, a feminine product ad? And the aspirational aspect can feel a bit too grasping. After a few hours of listening to happiness podcasts, I feel like I’m part of a sea of people across the world with their earbuds in, hands at their hearts, hoping upon hope that we will be lifted out of the dystopia in which we find our siloed, cyborg selves.
Um, no.
True mindfulness, however, does not offer an escape from reality. It is an immersion in reality. Mindfulness is paying attention to what is, which may well be the jackhammer outside your window, the ache in your knee, or the dust on your laptop.
Thompson says mindfulness is: “Intentionally coming into the present moment by paying attention to one of these 3 things: your breath, physical sensations in your body, or your senses.”
She says the practice involves “gently returning your attention back every time it wanders off” and “doing all of this with an attitude of warmth, curiosity and acceptance.”
What mindfulness is NOT, according to Thompson: “Relaxation or becoming ‘Zen,’ stopping thoughts or clearing your mind of all thoughts, visualization or going to ‘a happy place,’ sitting in the lotus position on top of a mountain or against a sunset and deserted beach!”
If Roy Kent had a mindfulness practice it might look like this.
“Taste the fucking flowers.”
Where does art fit in with all this?
Since mindfulness is about focusing our attention on our senses, art serves as an excellent sensory experience on which to focus. We could practice mindfulness by bringing awareness to an object like a hairbrush or a ballpoint pen. Noticing the texture, smell, weight, and other physical qualities of objects focuses the mind on perception rather than the looping thoughts in our minds. Art ups the game significantly. With complex colors, shapes, and patterns and compelling figures or subjects, art can serve as a powerful portal.
“In mindfulness practice we are taking some time just to connect with the physical aspect of our experience through the body and the senses. We are not setting the body on a pedestal above the thinking mind, but just giving it its rightful place, alongside, rather than being out on the margin of our experience.”
At the Manchester Art Gallery, Louise and colleagues have set up a special viewing room dedicated to mindfulness. Dubbed “Room to Breathe”, it provides a quiet, contemplative place where viewers can spend time with a select few artworks.
You may notice that one work featured in this video is Lucian Freud’s Girl with Beret. At first I thought to myself, how can anyone be calm looking at that painting? I mean, I get it, the girl is sitting peacefully and dressed in muted blues. But to me there’s so much stimulating going on with the painting. Take the fact that it was made by one of the major figurative painters of the 20th century - I’d approach the painting already buzzing. Then there’s the issue of Freud being a controversial figure in his lifetime, so I might expect to be unsettled by his work. Also, the painting itself, with an androgynous subject and her compelling gaze sets my thoughts and senses ablaze.
What better painting, actually, to practice mindfulness? If I can slow down and not get caught in my thoughts about this painting maybe I will become a Zen master!
Luckily, Manchester Art Gallery has a guided mindfulness practice for this painting (which anyone can listen to here). I took the audio tour via my computer while viewing the painting online. First I was invited to close my eyes and come into my body. Then I was encouraged to focus on the colors in the painting. My mind wanted to jump to interpretation, to tell a story about the girl. But the audio guide was ready for me and suggested setting thoughts aside and coming back to the colors. The focus then zoomed in to the figure’s hair. And then to her face. Again, just noticing shapes, colors, shading. No interpretation. Notice areas where light is reflected back, I was told. I was asked to look with kindness at the subject, identify with her humanity, sense the mood. Then I was invited notice feelings, emotions, thoughts, physical sensations in my body. And I noticed that….
I was calmer.
Plus I perceived the figure in an unencumbered way, not as “a Lucian Freud painting,” but as a striking person. The delicacy of the details were, for a few minutes, all that mattered. And for several nice breaths it was just me with my aching knee and the girl’s pale blue shining eyes, a tuft of her hair on her hat, my toes getting colder in the early spring air.
What an odd, lovely realization that it could all exist together, me here in Bend; her, timeless, in her frame in a gallery in Manchester; our blues and our grays, the multiple spaces and times between us, and also a recognition.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!