Beginning with our ancient ancestors
To begin to understand why we humans make art I want to take us back to the beginning… back to our ancient ancestors.
Curiosity and ancient archaeology
When I became curious about bringing art into my own coaching practice one of my starting points was my interest in ancient archaeology. I remember going to an extraordinary exhibition at the British Museum, Ice Age Art – arrival of the modern mind, curated by Jill Cook. This exhibition showed how art is a form of communication that pre-dates written and verbal language and ‘we human beings have used it for tens of thousands of years to communicate our place in the world; our ideas, feelings and perceptions’ (Sheather, 2019).
The exhibition showed artefacts up to 40,000 years old that had been carved, drawn into and sculpted. They had clay dishes with pigment still within them. It was as though making art as a form of communication was always within us.
Underpinning my practice
Understanding where art came from helped me to understand at a more fundamental level why art as a visual expressive language is so important. It has been instrumental in shaping my practice and the importance of working with the right hemisphere. This in turn underpins Stage 1 – Imaging and Stage 3 – Connecting of my Five Stages of Coaching with Art, as well as why being person-centred is so important. All of these I will explore in future blogs.
If you would like to start to understand more about why communicating through art is such a fundamental part of who we are you may enjoy this documentary:
The Culture Show 2013 Ice Age Art documentary with Andrew Graham Dixon as part of the British Museums exhibition Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind.
Originally a BBC documentary now on a commercial site but well worth putting up with the adverts!