thought gallery notes

art and Poetry and MADness and illness

and spirituality

and chaos notes and bibliography page.

Master of the Lotus Garden :

The Life and Art of Bada Shanren (1626 - 1705),

edited by Wang Fangyu, Richard Barnhart, and Judith Smith, New Haven,

Yale University Art Gallery, 1990 [OP]. This is a massive (300 pp) and rich

compendium of material on the life and work (including numerous prints) of

this master artist, poet, and calligrapher who was a monk, rebel, and madman

who pretended he was mad or madman who pretended he was not.

cover Depression and the Spiritual in Modern Art: Homage to Miro, edited by Joseph Schildkraut and Aurora Otero. NY, Wiley, 1996. Contains literary, psychological, and artisitc essays on depression and art, Miro, Tapies, the spiritual, creativity, abstract expressionism, collage, and a number of related topics: Essential for an understanding of the issues involved in art, mood disorders, and spirituality beyond psycholgical and critical writings.

Other Reviews

Art/Poetry and Health

Articulations : The Body and Illness in. in Poetry.

[Anthology] Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1994. 426pp. pb

Art/Poetry and Therapy

The Therapeutic Potential of Creative... Writing

Writing Myself by Gille Bolton. London, Jessica Kingsley, 1999.

from the Introduction: "Both creative writing and therapeutic writing

would lose much of their power if there was [a distinction]. That charge

comes from the emotional relationship of the writer with their writing."

Writing Well : Creative Writing and... Mental Health,

Deborah Philips, Liz Linington, and Debra Penman, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999.

is a hands-on handbook written from experiences in work with psychiatric paients.

While not terribly sophisticated in it's theoretical underpining and

oriented to writing as an activity therapy it does contain

useful exercises divided into empathy, changes

and endings, imagined worlds, opening

up, and exploring literary form.

Some other books on writing as therapy

Black Winds Press

return to metaphor

lifedesigns

humor