There’s plenty of evidence that creativity can improve and even prolong your life. Taking up an art like painting keeps your mind limber and your emotions alive, helps you stay curious and adventurous, and it also relieves stress (when you’re not pulling your hair out over how to paint a tree!).
Researchers studying links between health and five major personality traits found that only creativity — not intelligence, extroversion, openness, or agreeableness — improves one’s chances of staying healthy longer. It’s because creative expression enhances neural networks, keeping the brain healthy even into old age.
Being creative is also good practice for keeping an open mind. Creative thinking is about problem-solving as opposed to hand-wringing. It’s about making new connections, not cultivating doubt and division, and it’s about considering and integrating new information rather than closing it off or shutting it out.
Psychologists are discovering that these are the kind of traits that translate well to social situations. Creative thinkers – simply meaning ordinary people who are developing their ability to think and act creatively – score better when it comes to empathizing with others and understanding alternate points of view. And goodness knows these days we can do with more of that.
Stan Miller, self-portrait, watercolor on paper
“I believe that creative expression helps us leverage our better angels and be better versions of ourselves,” Veronica Keiffer-Lewis, Ed.D wrote in article published online by Psychology Today. “It can also help us develop and embody cultural humility, the lifelong commitment to understanding and respecting different points of view, … and see others in new ways.”
Artistry involves self-development. And that allows us to expand our understanding of ourselves and each other.
Attitude matters. Painting becomes a lot more fun if you can stay open and mostly uncritical while working. In other words, it helps when navigating the processes within painting if you can keep yourself in a state of suspended judgment, avoiding jumping to conclusions too quickly. It gives you a better chance of solving problems creatively as they arise rather than giving up the ship at every tenth wave. You also stand a better chance at being surprised by whatever comes next (or challenged to fix what unexpectedly goes wrong with that tree!).
Daniel Greene, “Self Portrait with Palette” Oil on linen 24 x 20
In other words, painting, like life, is less frustrating if you reframe perceived missteps and obstacles as opportunities for creative problem-solving. Equivalently, creative expression “can also help reframe (social) conflict as creative potential,” Keiffer-Lewis says, “or as an opportunity for understanding new social realities.”
Keiffer-Lewis tells an interesting story about a student at a college where she was presenting her research: “One day, a student at the college where we would be presenting came in and stared at a self-portrait my brother had painted entitled Colored. After studying the painting for a long time, he turned to us and said, ‘I really wish I knew what the artist was thinking and feeling when he created this.’
“My brother, in his wisdom replied, ‘Can you imagine a world where we all take as much time, care, and curiosity to understand another human being?’ That is the world I long for, and I dedicate my work to a world in which we see each human being as an amazing piece of art to be curious about, love, care for, and respect.”
The three portrait masters showcased in this article, each working in a different medium, all have highly popular tutorial videos. Check out Jove Wang, Expressive Portraits (oil), or Stan Miller, Watercolor Portraits & and Daniel Greene, The Pastel Portrait.
Finding Freedom in the Plein Air Adventure
A plein air Arizona scene in oil by Carrie Curran
Though widely known for her large and colorful florals, Carrie Curran is an enthusiastic and devoted plein air painter. For her, a six hour drive to schlep her easel and gear through sand dunes at dawn is just another part of the adventure.
“It’s so freeing,” she has said, “It just feels so good to be alone with my paints and breathe the fresh air.”
Carrie Curran, Monterey, oil, 12 x 16 in.
Carrie Curran will be one of the more than 60 instructors offering demos and insiders’ tips and tricks at this year’s Plein Air Convention and Expo in the Great Smoky Mountains, Nay 2024. is a nationally renowned artist, entrepreneur, teacher and mentor, she has been featured in USA Today, Iconic life, Good Morning Arizona, and many other publications and onine channels. She is the long-term Artist in Residence at the famed Hermosa Inn, rated No. 1 hotel in the Southwest, the No. 8 hotel in the country by Condé Nast Traveler’s Reader’s Choice Awards and Arizona’s No.1 Resort Hotel by Travel + Leisure.
Join Carrie and other top-of-their-game professional artists at the Great Smoky Mountains for the 11th Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo, May 20-24, 2024.
