Sep 20 2008
Art as a Cure for Depression
Masks by Elizabeth Layton – 1978
I work in an Engineering Technology department teaching computer systems technology. My campus is primarily technology oriented, and students who attend my school are very interested in technology. Since my arrival five years ago, I have worked hard to bring the arts and humanities into the consciousness of my students. It has often been a challenge reaching these students. Establishing relevancy is vitally important, and sometimes it is difficult to convince a technology student that learning about art is a worthwhile pursuit. Anything I can do to connect what we are learning to their lives really helps in the process.
This week in the Visual Literacy course I am teaching, we began to look at “Line” as a design element. When discussing “Line” I always like to introduce students to one of my favorite artists, famous for contour line drawings, Elizabeth Layton. (http://elizabethlayton.com/)
Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton was a Kansas-born artist who took up drawing at the age of 68 to help combat the depression that she struggled with throughout her life. According to the American Psychiatric Association, half of all college students struggle with depression to such a degree that it affects their ability to function. With depression running rampant at college, role modes such as Grandma Layton are vitally important.
Layton used a drawing technique known as “partial blind contour drawing”. She would study her own face in a mirror, then put the lines that she saw down on paper, only occasionally looking down to see if she was on track. Anyone who has actually tried to do a “blind contour drawing” as described in Betty Edwards’ book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” knows that if you do it right, you enter a near trance-like state; some call it a condition of “flow” when everything outside of what you are doing no longer matters to you.
Drawing in this way can certainly provide an escape from the outside pressures of the world. If you select subject matter to draw that is important to you as Grandma Layton did, all so much the better for your mental health. Sometimes it is just a good release to draw about something that has been eating away at you.
Censored by Elizabeth Layton – 1989
For example, the drawing “Censored” certainly communicates a sense of powerlessness, doesn’t it? When people feel helpless and powerless over their own lives, what else can be felt but anger and depression? If there is one thing that the youth and the elderly have in common, it is this sense of having no control over their own lives. But by drawing about it, some sense of control can be regained.
Art saved Elizabeth Layton’s life. From the time she took up art at age 68 until she died at age 83, she claimed that she never felt the pain of depression again. That she worked simply with paper and colored pencils using contour line drawing helps me to communicate one of the fundamental concepts of design. That she conquered depression through art will hopefully help to provide hope to some of my college age students who may also be feeling depressed.
4 responses so far
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I want to thank you for making reference to the prevalence of depression on college campuses. I agree that the arts can be an crucial outlet. My personal outlet is writing and I’m grateful that you are helping others find their own.
Marc
http://www.bipolarrealities.com
Great post, Bill; you’re helping eliminate the stigma in America about mental illness with news like this.
As a college mental health counselor, frankly I get more than a little ‘jittery’ about the responsibilities of my job…particularly when I read the prevalence rates of mental illness. Perhaps the silver lining of the tragic Virginia Tech massacre is that universities are paying much more attention to mental health services for their student body. (There remains alarmingly little funding for things like this though.)
Did you know a person can get a graduate degree in Art Therapy? No lie. Very cool stuff.
Your post makes me wonder: if art can be therapy for mental illness, does this -perhaps in part- explain that old stereotype of the “disturbed artist”?
I appreciate anything I see about Elizabeth. I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in the Kansas City area, and I was lucky enough to know Grandma Layton and Pappy (her husband who was also often a subject of her art). My family and I moved next door to them in 1976, the year she took her first art class. I saw the depression and the change in her. I was honored to see the artwork firsthand, and to have her explain what it meant to her.
I practice from an holistic concept of health, and have seen people with psychosis become healthy and “normal” again, simply by changing what and how they eat, physical activity, and attitude. Elizabeth was an early inspiration for me to pursue this avenue in my field. I’m happy she continues to inspire others in the same way.
[...] Layton was a Kansas native artist who battled depression until she took up drawing at the age of sixty-eight. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum [...]