I am studying a MOOC on Pop Art run by the Pompidou Centre. It’s just the sort of irreverent creativity that brings a smile to my face. One of the group tasks was to make a collage and stick it on the padlet board.
This was my effort, titled Suggestives – better than just biscuits… I know, it’s a bit lame, but on the plus side it only took about 15 minutes. Looking at other students’ work was a glimpse at Covid inspired art.
There was one with a lot of pretty faces with masks, but the one that grabbed my eyeballs was a collage with Tony the cartoon tiger from the breakfast cereal, Frosties and an ironic text about a new regulation in Scotland that implied that carrying guns was becoming mandatory.
If I hadn’t taken some annual leave, I doubt if I would have been in a MOOC state of mind, i.e. open to new ideas and upbeat. Art can do that to you. Thankfully, it appears that art galleries in the UK are open to the public. We only fully appreciate the creative arts when we are shielded from our previously popular pursuits: congregating in cramped spaces and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol or going to sports grounds and living vicariously.
Imagine a world without books, paintings, tv or radio programmes, films, dancing, music – dull isn’t the half of it! Art therapy is widely used to lift mood and poetry can have the same effect, but art is also an essential part of our being. Aesthetic experiences are the antirtthesis of anaesthesia. Sleepwalking through life is not an option, get arty.
Here’s an uplifting song sung by Maurice Cevalier called Sweeping the Clouds Away.
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odespinner 