Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. Today
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about these science backed benefits
Speaker 1: of art, whether that is creating it yourself, experiencing it,
Speaker 1: or even just taking an artistic mindset to whatever you do. First,
Speaker 1: we're going to speak to Daisy Fancourt. She's the world's
Speaker 1: foremost researcher studying the benefits of art. She also wrote
Speaker 1: a book called Art Cure. Then we're going to bring
Speaker 1: on Jesse Albrick. He's one of my favorite artists. He
Speaker 1: does ceramic work that is just mind blowing, beautiful, amazing.
Speaker 1: He's also a veteran of the Iraq War, so he's
Speaker 1: going to tell us his story. He's going to talk
Speaker 1: to us about how the war influences work and why
Speaker 1: creativity can be an outlet not only for veterans, with
Speaker 1: everyone else. I'll take a quick break and we'll start
Speaker 1: with Daisy. Well, Daisy Fancourt, thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: two percent.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's where I want to start. John Adams said
Speaker 1: I must study politics and war that my sons may
Speaker 1: have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought
Speaker 1: to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their
Speaker 1: children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statutary,
Speaker 1: tapestry and porcelain, so Adams. In this quote, he seems
Speaker 1: to be suggesting that art is the highest pursuit. Why
Speaker 1: is art so important for our lives and our well being?
Speaker 3: Arts engagement is a fundamental human behavior that's arguably one
Speaker 3: of the pinnacles of our evolution as apecies. And we
Speaker 3: see very clearly the impact that the arts have, whether
Speaker 3: it's on us as individuals, on our to societies, ways
Speaker 3: of challenging and developing our whole way of thinking as humans.
Speaker 3: But it's funny hearing that, because I think many people
Speaker 3: would really argue or with we're used in society to
Speaker 3: thinking about the reverse that actually the arts courses are
Speaker 3: the ones that are very much not the necessary, the
Speaker 3: ones that can be cut because we should be focusing
Speaker 3: all of our attention onto those other subjects instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned evolution, So what is the history of
Speaker 1: they art? How long has art been around in humanity?
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing to figure out.
Speaker 3: So actually some of the earliest tangible evidence of the
Speaker 3: art comes from sort of forty odd thousand years ago,
Speaker 3: where we've got things like bones, statues, bone flutes, cave paintings,
Speaker 3: sort of rhythmic heal patterns that suggest dance in caves.
Speaker 3: But actually there is some even earlier examples. We think
Speaker 3: of the arts actually emerging as a way of supporting
Speaker 3: social bonding, with some even arguing that singing evolved as
Speaker 3: a way of helping us to connect before language.
Speaker 2: Even came into being.
Speaker 3: And if that's so, then the arts and some form
Speaker 3: may have been with us for a couple of hundred
Speaker 3: thousand years and actually playing a really important role in
Speaker 3: our entire survival from the beginning that they emerged.
Speaker 1: That's amazing because I think when people think of the
Speaker 1: past and our hunter gatherer ancestors, they assume it was
Speaker 1: all just drudgery. All you do is walk around looking
Speaker 1: for food, hunting, and you just hope to survive. But
Speaker 1: it turns out people were spending time on I think
Speaker 1: what a lot of us today would consider leisure and
Speaker 1: this sort of higher thing we can do with our
Speaker 1: free time.
Speaker 3: But what's interesting here is that when they were engaging
Speaker 3: in arts, it seems to have had a purpose to it.
Speaker 3: It was about social bonding or connection or some of
Speaker 3: those early examples of the art, like the bone statues,
Speaker 3: were of female figures that people think may have been
Speaker 3: part of fertility rituals.
Speaker 2: So it suggests that.
Speaker 3: Arts were actually seen as a fundamental part of everyday
Speaker 3: life rather than just to kind of flippant nice thing
Speaker 3: to have. They were a necessity rather than luxury.
Speaker 1: I love it all right, coach. So to set the stage,
Speaker 1: you did a one hundred and forty six page report
Speaker 1: for the World Health Organization reviewed all the research on
Speaker 1: how art improves health and well being. You also have
Speaker 1: a book called Archer How Art Saves Lives, So big
Speaker 1: picture to set the stage, how does art save lives?
Speaker 3: Arts engagement can have so many effects on our health.
Speaker 3: One of the things that it can do is help
Speaker 3: to enhance our well being, giving us a sense of
Speaker 3: meaning and purpose in our lives, which is arguably what
Speaker 3: most people are looking for in a good life. But
Speaker 3: it can also actually impact every system in our body,
Speaker 3: our brains, our immune system, our cardiovascular system, and actually
Speaker 3: fundamentally impact our risk of developing illness from mental health
Speaker 3: problems to physical illness. And if we do develop health challenges,
Speaker 3: It can also play a really important role in the
Speaker 3: management and even treatments of psychological and physical symptoms.
Speaker 1: What do you think the mechanism is for mental health
Speaker 1: benefits and what are those seemed to be You mentioned
Speaker 1: sort of lightly on them, but what are some of
Speaker 1: the specific benefits we find and what's happening there.
Speaker 3: Well from day to day engagement in the arts. We
Speaker 3: actually see that if people are regularly engaged, they have
Speaker 3: about half the risk of developing depression over the next
Speaker 3: ten years of their lives, and if they already.
Speaker 2: Have symptoms of depression.
Speaker 3: For example, ARTS engagement an hour a week for twelve
Speaker 3: weeks tends to reduce symptoms by about thirty to forty
Speaker 3: percent in people. These are the same effect sizes that
Speaker 3: we actually see for other kinds of interventions like psychological
Speaker 3: therapies and medication, and the effects to be quite long
Speaker 3: lasting even after the end of finishing sort of three
Speaker 3: months of regular ARTS engagements. And part of the reason
Speaker 3: for it is that ARTS engagement helps to alter our moods.
Speaker 3: It can help us to feel happier when we engage,
Speaker 3: releasing neurotransmitters like dopamine that are involved in pleasure. It
Speaker 3: can also reduce our stress response systems, so lowering our
Speaker 3: heart rate, our blood pressure, stress hormones like cortisol. It
Speaker 3: can also affect inflammation in our immune system, which is
Speaker 3: actually very much linked in with depressive feelings, so our
Speaker 3: mood has these correlates within our immune system. When we
Speaker 3: can see arts engagement influencing both our feelings of moods
Speaker 3: and also those biological markers, and it can also help
Speaker 3: to give us a sense of community and a purpose
Speaker 3: and feel good about ourselves to mastery within it as well,
Speaker 3: so it can target multiple aspects of our well being.
Speaker 1: And then physically, what are some of the benefits we'll
Speaker 1: see there.
Speaker 3: Physically, if people engage regularly in the arts, we can
Speaker 3: see affecting different organ systems, like when we sing, for example,
Speaker 3: that actually helps to improve the strength of respiratory muscles.
Speaker 3: If we're regularly engaged in things like dance that have
Speaker 3: got that physical components, we see improvements in cardiovascular outcomes
Speaker 3: from blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, which are kind of fatty
Speaker 3: acids fatty fats.
Speaker 2: In our blood.
Speaker 3: We also see that regular engagement have muscular scaltal benefits.
Speaker 3: It's literally getting us out and about and keeping us
Speaker 3: physically active, so that has a lot of benefits as
Speaker 3: we get older.
Speaker 2: In particular, so people who.
Speaker 3: Engage regularly in the art are less likely to become
Speaker 3: frail or to develop age related signs of decline.
Speaker 2: We also see.
Speaker 3: Brain effects, so engaging in the art involves so many
Speaker 3: regions of our brain. It really is a whole brain
Speaker 3: workout which helps to strengthen connections between different regions of
Speaker 3: the brain. And in fact we see that people who
Speaker 3: are regularly engaged in the arts are actually younger biologically
Speaker 3: and neurologically.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then Daisy
Speaker 1: will explain to physical health benefits that can come from
Speaker 1: art that don't involved movement like painting. Is there do
Speaker 1: you get physical benefits from arts that don't have a
Speaker 1: movement component like do we see? I don't know, for example,
Speaker 1: benefits and heart health from people who are painting or
Speaker 1: creating music or anything like that.
Speaker 2: You do often through different pathways.
Speaker 3: So obviously if you're dancing, it is a form of
Speaker 3: aerobic exercise, so it's in a way it's not surprising
Speaker 3: you see health physical health benefits, although interestingly, a lot
Speaker 3: of the trials that compare dance to other aerobic exercise
Speaker 3: actually see even greater improvements in many health outcomes from
Speaker 3: the dance because it's not only the physical, it's also
Speaker 3: bringing in the social and also the psychological benefits of
Speaker 3: the creativity and the imagination that's involved in those mood
Speaker 3: benefits too. But we do see benefits from other kinds
Speaker 3: of non active arts as well. So in fact, my
Speaker 3: team and I have just finished a study where we've
Speaker 3: looked at how arts engagement affects patterns of gene expression,
Speaker 3: and it actually looks at particular patterns that we call
Speaker 3: epigenetic clocks, which are an indication of where the people
Speaker 3: aging biologically faster or slower than their chronological age. And
Speaker 3: we see that even the things that are the more
Speaker 3: passive arts engagement, like sitting and reading regularly for pleasure,
Speaker 3: or doing crafts or being involved in other arts groups,
Speaker 3: these are all linked in with a lower epigenetic age,
Speaker 3: the slower biological aging. And we think this is because
Speaker 3: arts engagement has such diverse psychological benefits for things like
Speaker 3: stress that we know really influence our physical health as well.
Speaker 1: So sort of in totality, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: when people think of how do I improve my health?
Speaker 1: They're often going, Okay, well I need to eat better,
Speaker 1: probably should sleep better, I should probably exercise it. But
Speaker 1: you know, go to the gym and do my three
Speaker 1: sets of ten raps or whatever. But you argue that
Speaker 1: the arts are a fifth pillar of health. They're just
Speaker 1: as important of as all of these other things. How
Speaker 1: string do you think the research on that?
Speaker 4: Is?
Speaker 2: The research is.
Speaker 3: Really accumulating so rapidly now. I think people are often
Speaker 3: surprise when they hear it's now tens of thousands of
Speaker 3: scientific studies on the health benefits of the arts, and
Speaker 3: actually a lot of these are increasingly pitting the arts
Speaker 3: against other health behaviors that we're much more familiar with. So,
Speaker 3: for example, the study I just mentioned on epigenetic aging,
Speaker 3: we actually directly compared arts for epigenetic aging and physical activity.
Speaker 2: They actually had.
Speaker 3: The same sized effect on our raid of epigenetic aging,
Speaker 3: which I think is just one example of so many
Speaker 3: studies now that are showing these parallel effect sizes between
Speaker 3: arts and other health behaviors, really highlighting that we need
Speaker 3: to take the arts more seriously.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And so from my perspective, sort of going into
Speaker 1: this and I thought there would be some benefits. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, there's probably some research search on this,
Speaker 1: and then I came across your massive WHL report and
Speaker 1: it was kind of one of those your jaw drops
Speaker 1: and goes, oh my god. I didn't realize there was
Speaker 1: this much there there. I mean, it's just fascinating.
Speaker 2: It's really exciting.
Speaker 3: And actually, if you look at other health behaviors, though,
Speaker 3: it's been a similar process of them not being taken
Speaker 3: seriously at first, Like if you look back in the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, there were still these debates about is exercise
Speaker 3: good for our health, which.
Speaker 2: Is such a hilarious concept to consider now.
Speaker 3: And another example I talk about in my book as
Speaker 3: well is seat beltsing cars. Like if you look back
Speaker 3: before the nineteen nineties, nobody wore a seat belting cars.
Speaker 3: People thought it was a ridiculous concept, and it took years,
Speaker 3: decades of scientific research about the impact it has for
Speaker 3: our health and survival and lobbying and like really public
Speaker 3: awareness building before suddenly there was this huge sea change
Speaker 3: in awareness and also in people's behaviors. And I think
Speaker 3: that we're getting to that similar seatbelt moment or tipping
Speaker 3: point with art engagement. People are actually increasingly becoming aware
Speaker 3: of this evidence. It's why I've written this book to
Speaker 3: really try and galvanize that public awareness. And I'm hoping
Speaker 3: that we'll have that similar tipping point where suddenly, in
Speaker 3: a few years everybody will be like, well, of course
Speaker 3: art is good for our health and.
Speaker 5: We should be doing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that question. Do you have to produce art
Speaker 1: or make art yourself or can you just consume it
Speaker 1: and get a lot of the benefits we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: So both have benefits for us, and I'd say you
Speaker 3: can think about it a little bit like thinking about
Speaker 3: ingredients in a meal, because when we engage in different
Speaker 3: arts activities, they all have different ingredients. Like some are
Speaker 3: more social, some are involve more different sensory stimulations. Some
Speaker 3: are involving our own creativity and imagination.
Speaker 2: Some are more physical. So naturally, the things where we are.
Speaker 3: Producing and having to really get involved ourselves, those can
Speaker 3: bring additional benefits of their own. They might support our
Speaker 3: feelings of mastery or self esteem if we're creating things ourselves.
Speaker 3: But actually they're more sort of so called receptive things
Speaker 3: like reading books or watching films or going to the theater.
Speaker 3: These also have lots of benefits, particularly because they tend
Speaker 3: to expose us to lots of new emotions, new storylines
Speaker 3: that can challenge our way of thinking. So they might
Speaker 3: influence us in different ways, but often we actually see
Speaker 3: quite similar health outcomes, particularly for outcomes that are quite
Speaker 3: broad like mental health.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of mental health, there's part of your report
Speaker 1: and your work is looked at behavioral health, especially with
Speaker 1: kids and teens and arts.
Speaker 4: What have you found there.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, there's a lot of research now growing about the
Speaker 3: benefits the arts engagement has for supporting children in developing
Speaker 3: their own behaviors.
Speaker 2: So we see that young people who are.
Speaker 3: Regularly engaged in the arts actually have better levels of
Speaker 3: self control and self esteem, and they're actually less likely
Speaker 3: to develop behavioral problems and also to get involved in
Speaker 3: antisocial or criminalized behaviors. That some of this is probably
Speaker 3: displacement effects. You know, if you're spending your time doing arts,
Speaker 3: you might not have as much time to be sort
Speaker 3: of staying out on the streets or getting into trouble
Speaker 3: for example. But actually the fact that the artists do
Speaker 3: nurture those core skills like empathy and helping to put
Speaker 3: ourselves in other people's shoes, which is known as theory
Speaker 3: of minds. Those are very very important psychological skills that
Speaker 3: we build up through and interestingly, when we're looking at narrative,
Speaker 3: at things that are involving stories, they're particularly important for
Speaker 3: young people because it means that they are feeding their
Speaker 3: brains with different scenarios, different emotions, and they're having to
Speaker 3: practice how to manage those emotions, but also how to
Speaker 3: imagine how they would respond to all of those different scenarios.
Speaker 3: And that's what young people's brains are constantly doing, trying
Speaker 3: to build up their repertswire of how they can respond
Speaker 3: to really complex situations and be resilient in them as well.
Speaker 2: And by giving us.
Speaker 3: All of those different exposures through art, we're actually building
Speaker 3: what's called the predictive coding abilities of young people's brains.
Speaker 1: So what do you tell parents? What's the takeaway for parents?
Speaker 1: Does it just get your kids involved in any art
Speaker 1: at all, or what's the sort of path in the
Speaker 1: basket There is there a specific dose the research findes,
Speaker 1: or what does that look like?
Speaker 3: So I think in young children the sort of main
Speaker 3: message and I have young kids myself, so I've definitely
Speaker 3: been learning this on a fly, But the main message
Speaker 3: is just to embrace creativity across day to day whenever
Speaker 3: you can. So kids are so naturally good at this,
Speaker 3: like they're constantly singing or dancing, or acting out bits
Speaker 3: of stories or wanting to read and doing crafts, and
Speaker 3: I think really embracing those, even if they're just those
Speaker 3: micro moments that get scattered across the day, because that's
Speaker 3: so important for developing their creativity and giving them those
Speaker 3: exposure to emotions.
Speaker 2: And to storylines.
Speaker 3: As young people get older, I think there are new
Speaker 3: opportunities that can be added in, like giving them new
Speaker 3: novel art experiences. So I love taking my kids to
Speaker 3: watch street musicians buskers in our town because it's such
Speaker 3: an easy way to be exposed to music. There's no
Speaker 3: pressure to sit down for an hour or two. You
Speaker 3: can just have those micro moments. But it's giving them
Speaker 3: those fresh perspectives and starting to go to other shows
Speaker 3: or gigs or festivals that can give them that exposure
Speaker 3: is exciting. And if they can develop a creative hobby
Speaker 3: that they have that chance to work at and build
Speaker 3: that sense of self esteem and mastery, that can be
Speaker 3: really really important in building a strong sense of self
Speaker 3: and confidence in a strong community as well as they're
Speaker 3: getting older.
Speaker 1: So social media takes a lot of heat around kids
Speaker 1: and mental health. At the same time, I think you
Speaker 1: could argue that social media is a creative outlet. It
Speaker 1: can be something where you're creating content that took creativity
Speaker 1: and it's interesting and it's almost a form of art.
Speaker 1: So what are your thoughts on that, How do you
Speaker 1: see the balance and so a big question.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 3: I think social media is sometimes sort of demonized as
Speaker 3: being a bad thing, but you're right that there can
Speaker 3: be a creative content component here and they can also
Speaker 3: I've increasingly seen this trend amongst young people which is
Speaker 3: doing what's called granny hobbies, so things like textiles, approache,
Speaker 3: these kinds of things, which is incredibly rude name for them,
Speaker 3: but it's been really trending of young people actually getting
Speaker 3: off their phones doing the crafting is a similar small
Speaker 3: activity with your hands that.
Speaker 2: You can do in a few minutes.
Speaker 3: But then they've been sharing their outputs back on social media.
Speaker 3: So I think for me, the really important component comes
Speaker 3: down to, is there the creativity and the imagination involved
Speaker 3: in this and also, what is it that you're trying
Speaker 3: to share with this. If it's about sharing those creative products,
Speaker 3: that's a little bit different from sharing self images. Is
Speaker 3: this about putting your self esteem into the art that
Speaker 3: you're involved in as supposed to about your own looks
Speaker 3: or your own selfies that are sort of coming out
Speaker 3: of this, And I think that can be a helpful
Speaker 3: differentiator in what is undoubtedly quite a complex balance and
Speaker 3: blurred line.
Speaker 1: So one thing that I loved I'll be thinking about
Speaker 1: this next time I visited a hospital is how you
Speaker 1: wrote about how having art, different forms of art in
Speaker 1: hospitals can help patient outcomes.
Speaker 4: What have you found there?
Speaker 3: So we've I used to work in hospitals in the UK,
Speaker 3: so I actually came out of at LEAs clinical programs
Speaker 3: and I was constantly really inspired by the impact that
Speaker 3: these programs have. I got to see firsthand that actually
Speaker 3: there were scenarios arts could offer things that actually medication couldn't.
Speaker 3: And I talk about some of these in the book,
Speaker 3: like the role that arts can play for example, and
Speaker 3: end of life care and really connecting families and supporting
Speaker 3: processes like bereavement and grief, which is such a complex topic,
Speaker 3: but one where we actually instinctively turn to the arts
Speaker 3: to support us in that time in societies all around
Speaker 3: the world. But there are also some other really interesting
Speaker 3: clinical contexts where I actually think we're being less safe
Speaker 3: and less ethical by not.
Speaker 2: Incorporating the arts and hospitals.
Speaker 3: So one example of that is thinking about surgical settings,
Speaker 3: where anxiety is naturally a big thing for people if
Speaker 3: they're going in to have surgeries, and actually if we
Speaker 3: do something as simple as play recorded music for people
Speaker 3: before and after their surgeries, we actually see really marked
Speaker 3: reductions in their own anxiety levels, but also in the
Speaker 3: amount of sedatives that they need and the amount of
Speaker 3: opioids that people need as well. And in fact, studies
Speaker 3: that have directly compared playing music to giving people anti
Speaker 3: anxiety meds show the music is more effective than the
Speaker 3: meds at reducing surgical anxiety. And given with talking about
Speaker 3: big issues like opoid crises and things which often can
Speaker 3: be triggered by things like having opioids following routine surgeries,
Speaker 3: using things like the arts as a way of helping
Speaker 3: people with more organic analgusics in natural analgusics, which is
Speaker 3: exactly what music provides, is a really powerful cost saving
Speaker 3: and almoso potentially life saving things to be thinking about.
Speaker 1: So should patients be advocating I want to take in
Speaker 1: my favorite playlist before my surgery.
Speaker 4: Is that how this plays out?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: I think that's a great thing if people can remember
Speaker 3: to be taking in those playlists. But I also think
Speaker 3: it's something that we can be providing so easily in hospitals.
Speaker 3: When I worked at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London,
Speaker 3: we actually worked with Brian Eno, the composer, and he
Speaker 3: developed this digital artwork that we placed in the booths
Speaker 3: that patients waited in before their surgeries, and he had
Speaker 3: his ambient music playing as well, and it was such
Speaker 3: a lovely thing for the hospital then to be offering
Speaker 3: that men. Even if people forgot to bring in their
Speaker 3: own music or what sure what to listen to, they
Speaker 3: had that really relaxing exposure before their operation.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. You mentioned art in end of life care.
Speaker 1: How does that actually play out? What does it look
Speaker 1: like and what have you found?
Speaker 3: So when I worked at Chelsea and Westminster, I remember
Speaker 3: working on one of the wards, their palliative careward, where
Speaker 3: there was a man who asked if he could have
Speaker 3: music for his final hours, and his family were around him,
Speaker 3: and we had a guitarist in the hospital that day,
Speaker 3: So the guitarist went into the room and played loads
Speaker 3: of his favorite music, and all of his family sang
Speaker 3: along as they said goodbye, and they kept singing for
Speaker 3: about an hour after he passed away. I felt like
Speaker 3: that was such a poignant example, an incredible gift that
Speaker 3: musician was able to give to that family in that
Speaker 3: in his last moments together. And there are so many
Speaker 3: examples that we see not just of music, but also
Speaker 3: of physical artwork being used in similar processes. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: of things like the HIV quilt, which has become like
Speaker 3: the largest example of community art in the world and
Speaker 3: has been such an important focal point for people to
Speaker 3: be able to grieve.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, with playing music, especially singing wind instruments, you found
Speaker 1: some beneficial things around lung health.
Speaker 4: Tell us about that.
Speaker 3: This is a really interesting emerging area of evidence because
Speaker 3: most of us actually don't tend to breathe correctly. We
Speaker 3: tend to do a lot of focus on the in breath,
Speaker 3: like deep breaths, but actually not so much on the exhale,
Speaker 3: and actually the exhale is where we focus all of
Speaker 3: our attention when we're doing wind instruments or singing. That's
Speaker 3: how we make the music. So there's been a number
Speaker 3: of studies saying, well, if we were to use singing
Speaker 3: or playing instruments, can we actually improve lung function in people?
Speaker 3: And certainly we see that professional singers and wind instrument
Speaker 3: players have better. They have stronger long function, they have
Speaker 3: stronger outbreaths what's called forced expiratory volume. But this is
Speaker 3: an interesting one in people who have conditions like chronic
Speaker 3: lung diseases like COPD for example, And actually a number
Speaker 3: of studies now have suggested that singing can actually helped
Speaker 3: to improve things like feelings of breathlessness and improve some
Speaker 3: lung function outcomes. So there are a number of programs
Speaker 3: that have been integrating singing as part of pulmonary rehabilitation
Speaker 3: for people with lung diseases.
Speaker 1: We had Andy Gaalpin, who's an American researcher on the
Speaker 1: podcast recently and he referenced the study that found people
Speaker 1: who had played the dju do they were experiencing sleep ATNA.
Speaker 1: Researchers how to play the dj DO and it improved
Speaker 1: their sleep ATNA outcomes because it sort of taught them
Speaker 1: to push their breath out. What have you found around
Speaker 1: cognitive benefits, especially for older adults and arts.
Speaker 3: This is a really interesting area that we've done quite
Speaker 3: a bit of work, and what we found is that
Speaker 3: people who are regularly engaged in the arts actually have
Speaker 3: better preservation of their cognition as they get oldest. They
Speaker 3: have better memory and executive function as they age. But
Speaker 3: we've also found that they have a longer time free
Speaker 3: from dementia, so a longer time until they actually start
Speaker 3: to show signs of dementia. And this is because arts
Speaker 3: engagement can help to build what's called cognitive reserve, and
Speaker 3: this is the resilience of the brain against cognitive decliente.
Speaker 3: So even if you're starting to develop their plaques and
Speaker 3: the tangles that are their physiological hallmarks of dementia, if
Speaker 3: you've got higher levels of cognitive reserve, you can essentially
Speaker 3: compensate for longer, so you can live with better cognitive
Speaker 3: functioning before you start to show those symptoms. And actually,
Speaker 3: increasingly we're starting to understand why and how art engagement
Speaker 3: builds that cognitive reserve, and one of the things that
Speaker 3: it does is it helps to build the connectivity between
Speaker 3: regions of the brain that are vulnerable to aging, so
Speaker 3: it helps them to talk strong better with each other,
Speaker 3: and it also helps to build new neural pathways. And
Speaker 3: in fact, people who are regularly engaged as professionals or
Speaker 3: as amateurs in the arts actually have younger brain ages
Speaker 3: to people who aren't engaging.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. What if you found around in benefits for sleep?
Speaker 1: This I thought was interesting too, especially around music, because
Speaker 1: I would think if I need to fall asleep, anything's
Speaker 1: perfectly silent. But there is some evidence that suggests music
Speaker 1: and also help us sleep. And I feel like probably
Speaker 1: everyone listening to this podcast has gone, you know what,
Speaker 1: I could have more of sleep?
Speaker 4: So how do I find that a lot of.
Speaker 2: This seems to be links to stress?
Speaker 3: So actually, the studies that have looked at music and
Speaker 3: sleep have often looked at people listening to music earlier
Speaker 3: in the day, So it's not necessarily about changing a
Speaker 3: sleep routine, but it's trying to provide ways of reducing
Speaker 3: stress levels because as many people who have sleep problems
Speaker 3: will be conscious the biggest barrier to sleep is stress,
Speaker 3: and so that physiological relaxation that you can get through.
Speaker 2: Art is really fundamental there.
Speaker 3: So we do see that people who listen can actually
Speaker 3: improve their sleep over several weeks, and if people who
Speaker 3: are regularly engaged in the arts tend to have better
Speaker 3: sleep over time anyway, largely because of those reductions in stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just this overall reducing stress seems to help
Speaker 1: nearly everything in the body that we suffer from today.
Speaker 4: Bad sleep affects heart to use all these different systems,
Speaker 4: it does.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that music is so good
Speaker 3: at as a temporal art form is that if you
Speaker 3: pick music with a slow beat, we tend to synchronize
Speaker 3: our heart rate and our breathing to that beat.
Speaker 2: It's a process called entrainment.
Speaker 3: So it means that gradually we will calm ourselves down
Speaker 3: because we will automatically want to synchronize, and that means
Speaker 3: that music is not just a kind of mood relaxer,
Speaker 3: but it is also physiological relaxer for us. Another sort
Speaker 3: of classic example is that people often feel better if
Speaker 3: they're feeling sad and they listen to really sad music.
Speaker 3: That can often make you feel better because it means
Speaker 3: you feel validated emotionally, and it can help you to
Speaker 3: understand your own emotions.
Speaker 2: But equally, if.
Speaker 3: You keep listening and keep listening to really downbeat or
Speaker 3: sad things, then that could actually perpetuate negative emotions.
Speaker 2: So there is a balance here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I talk in the book about some of
Speaker 3: the strategies that people might want to know that might
Speaker 3: help them with this. So things like if you're listening
Speaker 3: to that really sad music and it's helping you initially,
Speaker 3: there's a lovely thing which is called the isoprinciple, where
Speaker 3: gradually each piece that you listen to, you try and
Speaker 3: shift it a bit more towards the mood you want
Speaker 3: to be in. So you're initially indulging that emotion, but
Speaker 3: you're also gradually trying to shift.
Speaker 2: That mood profile.
Speaker 3: And there are some really great examples like that that
Speaker 3: can inform people so they don't accidentally make themselves feel worse.
Speaker 3: But feeling bad or worse is very much the minority
Speaker 3: outcome compared to all the benefits the arts usually bring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: We had a lady named Taylor Lorenz on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and she's sort of an expert in internet culture and algorithms,
Speaker 1: and she mentioned that one of the most powerful and
Speaker 1: tuned up algorithms is actually in Spotify. Surprisingly, people think
Speaker 1: that it's social media. No, it's actually Spotify. And she
Speaker 1: had a friend that was going through a divorce, you know,
Speaker 1: So she starts to listen to one sad song, and
Speaker 1: then it starts feeding her more sad songs and more
Speaker 1: sad songs, and eventually this lady was like, I think
Speaker 1: that my Spotify algorithm is actually making me more sad
Speaker 1: and sort of pushing me down the drain. So it's
Speaker 1: almost like she had to be all right, I have
Speaker 1: to consciously start to listen to upbeat stuff so the
Speaker 1: algorithm will go, okay, well, maybe the divorce is going
Speaker 1: a little better now, maybe you've got a big sallement
Speaker 1: or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's why it's good to be more
Speaker 3: aware of the science, because you're right, those are algorithms
Speaker 3: that won't know this science. These are algorithms that just think, oh,
Speaker 3: you're enjoying this, I can leap you in and get
Speaker 3: you to.
Speaker 2: Do more of it.
Speaker 3: But I think that's where people need to know how
Speaker 3: they can they can take control of their engagement.
Speaker 2: And I think that things that are ai led in
Speaker 2: that way probably the things.
Speaker 3: That are most likely to cause harm because they're not
Speaker 3: considering the well being of the person at the core
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break and then Daisy is
Speaker 1: going to explain whether we engage with art more or
Speaker 1: less today or in the past. Do you think that
Speaker 1: people engage in arts less often today compared to the
Speaker 1: past or is it?
Speaker 2: Oh, we know they do way less. We did a
Speaker 2: study last year.
Speaker 3: In the US looking at adults in the US, and
Speaker 3: we found that only one in twenty adults will say
Speaker 3: that they did any arts yesterday. And if you go
Speaker 3: back a few hundred years, like everybody was singing, dancing,
Speaker 3: telling stories as part of everyday life. We were looking
Speaker 3: and juststed it had to be the primary thing you
Speaker 3: were doing, so you couldn't count plugging in headphones and
Speaker 3: then multitasking. It had to be the thing you were
Speaker 3: giving your attention to. But only five percent of adults
Speaker 3: were doing.
Speaker 4: It, only five percent.
Speaker 3: And for reference, like in high income countries, fifty seven
Speaker 3: percent will say they ate vegetables yesterday and forty percent
Speaker 3: will say they did their physical activity. So compared to
Speaker 3: other health promoting behaviors, arts is really coming out bottom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we go back to this is almost like
Speaker 1: we were talking about how the thinking on these things
Speaker 1: has shifted, where if you looked at say, people exercising,
Speaker 1: which is moving for the sake of movement.
Speaker 4: Forty years ago, when we.
Speaker 1: Thought maybe exercise is good, maybe not like probably not
Speaker 1: many people were doing it. And then as we've sort
Speaker 1: of increased the awareness on night you see a small
Speaker 1: upartic I will say more people should exercise, but still
Speaker 1: it kind of suggests that arts is, to your point,
Speaker 1: one of these things where the research is really growing,
Speaker 1: it's really strong, yet we haven't quite caught up in
Speaker 1: the discourse to get everyone on board.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we can look at things like running as
Speaker 3: a kind of parallel example. If you look back a
Speaker 3: few decades compared to now, the average speed that adults
Speaker 3: ran a five k and a ten k was faster,
Speaker 3: not because people are getting slower now, but because more
Speaker 3: and more people are getting into running, even if they
Speaker 3: didn't think of themselves as a runner before. And that's
Speaker 3: such a wonderful success story because it's saying that we're
Speaker 3: actually managing to broaden the appeal of such a simple
Speaker 3: exercise like running, And I think it would be amazing
Speaker 3: if we saw a similar thing with the arts. It's
Speaker 3: not got to be You've not got to be a
Speaker 3: great artist to be doing arts. It's not about that,
Speaker 3: it's about participating. So i'd love to see a similar
Speaker 3: statistic in a couple of decades showing that more and
Speaker 3: more people have been engaging in the art and it's
Speaker 3: become much more accessible as a.
Speaker 2: Thing to do.
Speaker 4: What do you think holds people back from trying art?
Speaker 3: Many people don't think they're artistic or creative, and I
Speaker 3: think this is the biggest barrier people face, and it
Speaker 3: was sort of perpetuating it because whether you feel artistic
Speaker 3: will come down to whether you did arts in school
Speaker 3: and therefore you felt that you were good at it,
Speaker 3: and arts is getting more like less and less accessible in.
Speaker 2: Schools, so we're creating more and more of this problem.
Speaker 3: But I think there's also another issue, which is it
Speaker 3: can feel sometimes like something that's a bit inaccessible, like
Speaker 3: is it expensive or if you do you need an
Speaker 3: arts venue, is it something that you feel is socially
Speaker 3: the norm where you live. So I think there were
Speaker 3: lots of different barriers that we need to break down
Speaker 3: because at the moment, there is quite a strong social gradient.
Speaker 3: Yet people who engage in the arts are typically people
Speaker 3: who are wealthier, or got more education, or come from
Speaker 3: backgrounds where they did arts themselves as a child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big question. What counts as art? I think when
Speaker 1: people hear art, they go, Okay, it's painting, it's probably music,
Speaker 1: it's sculpting. Opera, yes, opera, Everyone get into opera. But
Speaker 1: what counts as art?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 3: I define arts engagement as creative activities that people do
Speaker 3: that have the core artistic ingredients and for me though,
Speaker 3: are multisensory stimulation, creativity, esthetics, imagination. So yes, that includes
Speaker 3: things like performing arts, visual arts, literature, going to cultural
Speaker 3: venues and festivals. But I also think it should include
Speaker 3: things like horticultural arts like growing and arranging flowers, or
Speaker 3: culinary arts like baking and decorating cakes.
Speaker 2: Those contain all of those.
Speaker 3: Same ingredients as to things like carpentry and woodwork, which
Speaker 3: have got exactly those same creative processes. And I think
Speaker 3: that can also make it a slightly more accessible definition
Speaker 3: that people actually might realize they already are engaging in
Speaker 3: these things and they're not giving it their label, or
Speaker 3: they might find activities that might be less common, but
Speaker 3: actually ones that really speak to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if this is sort of akin to exercise,
Speaker 1: where the best exercise is the one that you enjoy
Speaker 1: and we'll actually do, and that sort of applies to art.
Speaker 1: It's just find something that hits those boxes that you
Speaker 1: just mentioned and then try it up, see what happens,
Speaker 1: and if you like it, stick to it.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: And there are plenty of people who would hate the
Speaker 3: idea of going to a gym, but actually we get
Speaker 3: massively into really quirky sports or physical activity hobbies and
Speaker 3: that's brilliant and that's exactly the attitude that we want
Speaker 3: to have with arts. You've not got to go to
Speaker 3: the opera. You need to find that creative practice that
Speaker 3: you really enjoy.
Speaker 1: Given what we've talked about on all these emerging benefits,
Speaker 1: what is your thoughts on should we have better policies
Speaker 1: to promote art and what is the role of I
Speaker 1: guess communities, governments, different groups and getting art to the
Speaker 1: forefront Because you did mention only five percent of people
Speaker 1: are actually engaging every day.
Speaker 3: Well, it's actually a United Nations human right that everyone
Speaker 3: has access to the arts and we know it's one
Speaker 3: of the only UN human rights that is not monitored,
Speaker 3: and we know it as far from being achieved. So
Speaker 3: I think there definitely is a role for governments and
Speaker 3: thinking well, actually, how can we make arts accessible to
Speaker 3: try and break down some of those barriers. And actually
Speaker 3: we're seeing at international levels, like bodies like UNESCO and
Speaker 3: Weld Health Organization are getting really behind trying to encourage
Speaker 3: people to recognize arts as a health promoting behavior because
Speaker 3: actually at national levels we see that investing in the
Speaker 3: arts is not a nice thing. I mean it is,
Speaker 3: but it's not just a nice thing. We actually see
Speaker 3: really strong returns on investments. So in the UK, for example,
Speaker 3: for every pound that goes in via Arts Council budgets
Speaker 3: to fund arts in communities, we see around eleven pounds
Speaker 3: return on investment in terms of the well being benefits,
Speaker 3: reductions and health and social care utilization and improvements in productivity.
Speaker 3: And those are just the health benefits. We know there
Speaker 3: are other ways that the arts producer return on investment too,
Speaker 3: So I think a lot of this is actually getting
Speaker 3: governments to realize it's actually an investment putting money.
Speaker 2: Into the arts. But there's also a really important role.
Speaker 3: I think about how we think about the arts in
Speaker 3: terms of curriculum and educational policies, making sure all the
Speaker 3: young people have that opportunity to engage, both for their
Speaker 3: own mental health now and to support future engagements, and
Speaker 3: also seeing how we can perhaps value artists a bit
Speaker 3: differently because artists have such precarious working situations often and.
Speaker 2: Like fluctuating pay.
Speaker 3: My parents are both freelance artists, so I very much
Speaker 3: see this world and I think we could be reconsidering
Speaker 3: actually how important artists are in communities and how important
Speaker 3: their work is, and seeing how we can support them more.
Speaker 1: I just want to put a pin in that one
Speaker 1: pound invested returns eleven pounds in.
Speaker 2: Terms of well being benefits.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is work we've carried out in the UK
Speaker 3: where we've used the government's own Treasury Green Book, which
Speaker 3: is kind of about economic book to value this. And
Speaker 3: basically each point improvement in well being that we see
Speaker 3: is monetized because we know if you have higher well being,
Speaker 3: you can be more independent, you can contribute more to society,
Speaker 3: and these are the returns on investment that come out
Speaker 3: at a population level.
Speaker 1: I believe that investors call anything that gives any more
Speaker 1: than a ten x return a unicorn, and that's like
Speaker 1: the best thing you can hope for in investments. That's
Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal. I thought you were going to say maybe
Speaker 1: two or three, but eleven.
Speaker 5: Is.
Speaker 3: The challenge is that these values are often recuperated across
Speaker 3: different government departments.
Speaker 2: So this is where the challenge comes in.
Speaker 3: Because government departments often want something that will produce a
Speaker 3: direct return to their department, they won't care so much
Speaker 3: if it goes to a different government department, and that
Speaker 3: can be a challenge. But there's another really nice example
Speaker 3: actually recently, which was looking at Ireland and they have
Speaker 3: been implementing a universal basic income for artists. So they've
Speaker 3: just been given a salary to artists and they've been saying, well, actually,
Speaker 3: what happens, And they've found that the artists not only
Speaker 3: have improvements themselves and mental health well being, but they
Speaker 3: actually produce more art, they involve more members of the
Speaker 3: public in their art, and they actually manage to generate
Speaker 3: more income for themselves and also for society through their
Speaker 3: art if they have that basic income. So we're seeing
Speaker 3: these sort of returns coming back in so many different ways.
Speaker 3: Across different kinds of economic modeling.
Speaker 4: How do you think the US does and all this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: The US, it's got a convex set up because you've
Speaker 3: got different policies across states as well as nationally, so
Speaker 3: it can be I guess harder in that way to
Speaker 3: see massive change in people's engagement. But I think the
Speaker 3: US has been really innovative recently in having arts on
Speaker 3: prescription programs in eighteen different parts of the US, and
Speaker 3: I've been involved in the evaluation of this program, and
Speaker 3: it's been really incredible, actually even seeing insurance companies actually
Speaker 3: putting money into this, recognizing that actually, if people can
Speaker 3: be given referrals to arts by healthcare professionals, it can
Speaker 3: support their well being and their functioning and actually mean
Speaker 3: that they're not necessarily they're needing to draw on health
Speaker 3: services in the same way. So it can actually produce
Speaker 3: returns on investment for those insurers too.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. Okay, we're going to start to land
Speaker 1: the plane. Someone hears this conversation, they're kind of interested.
Speaker 1: Where would you tell them to start.
Speaker 2: Well, reading my book is definitely a good place to start.
Speaker 1: As I second that as a fellow author, I will
Speaker 1: say yes, read more books. Final question, So we started
Speaker 1: this conversation with the John Adams quote about art. The
Speaker 1: thing is he didn't actually study art, and you do
Speaker 1: with the foremost researcher in the world on art. So, enclosing,
Speaker 1: what would your big quote about art be, I'd.
Speaker 3: Say arts are not a luxury in our lives, there
Speaker 3: in necessity, and I really believe that they are a
Speaker 3: missing pillar of our health.
Speaker 4: I love it. Well, Daisy, thanks so much for coming
Speaker 4: on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 4: Thanks to Daisy.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk to Jesse Albrech about war
Speaker 1: and a ceramic work right after the break.
Speaker 4: All right, Jesse, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 5: Man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Stoked to be here.
Speaker 1: So you joined the military when you were studying art
Speaker 1: in college. You get in How did the military guys
Speaker 1: take your art background?
Speaker 6: Well, initially as a youngster, there was a little bit
Speaker 6: of scrap and that had to earn that placeholder for
Speaker 6: me when I was, you know, an eighteen nineteen year
Speaker 6: old kid in the field artillery. But yeah, it was
Speaker 6: all kind of good need shured, hardcore Wisconsin ribbing. And
Speaker 6: then when I joined the other unit down in Iowa City.
Speaker 6: I was a little bit older, and I think being
Speaker 6: the fact that it was a medical unit, there was
Speaker 6: a little bit more grace given to varying backgrounds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense. So you what year did you join?
Speaker 5: Nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: I enlisted, Okay, and then eventually nine to eleven happens
Speaker 1: you went over to Iraq, right, correct?
Speaker 6: So I I just started my third semester of graduate school.
Speaker 6: I was in my MFA program in the ceramics program
Speaker 6: at the University of Iowa and Iowa City, and it
Speaker 6: was February when we got put on active duties. So
Speaker 6: I withdrew from that semester and we deployed out of
Speaker 6: Fort McCoy in Wisconsin in February. It was pretty cold.
Speaker 6: We ended up loading art all of our equipment. We
Speaker 6: had ambulances and stuff like that. Home vs and and
Speaker 6: inducing a half trucks on the trains that went down
Speaker 6: to Florida got loaded on boats. But we went over
Speaker 6: on a plane. So we landed Kuwait, and you know,
Speaker 6: I think it was the idea was to have people
Speaker 6: there and when our equipment got there, you know, it
Speaker 6: took a while for the boats to get there, so
Speaker 6: there was an adjustment period sitting in the desert waiting.
Speaker 6: The actual ground assault ended then and then there was
Speaker 6: a lot of unknowing, a lot of like I said,
Speaker 6: a lot of waiting, a lot of rumors, and then
Speaker 6: we ended up after probably a month or two in Kuwait.
Speaker 6: We then drove into Iraq and got up to northern Iraq.
Speaker 6: We were just south of Mosul, and pretty quickly then
Speaker 6: a buddy of mine and a PA spent about a
Speaker 6: month on the Turkish border in a town called Zako
Speaker 6: provide medical.
Speaker 5: Support for.
Speaker 6: The folks that were escorting pro paint tanks tankers coming into.
Speaker 5: Iraq, and then spent most of the time in Mosel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mosel was a pretty hot area right it started.
Speaker 6: It started very chill, and then pretty quickly it got
Speaker 6: it got exciting, and then it got much more exciting
Speaker 6: as time went on. So, uh, there was there was
Speaker 6: like a brief lull where it was kind of like hey, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, everything's great, and then pretty quickly things were
Speaker 6: not great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was the So we were effectively trying to
Speaker 1: take Mosl and obviously facing a lot of resistance.
Speaker 6: No, so in a sense like it was like, hey,
Speaker 6: you know, we won the war. It was kind of
Speaker 6: like the initial thing. So the battle for Mosel wasn't
Speaker 6: happening when I was there. It was it was like,
Speaker 6: you know, things were in a sense chill, and then
Speaker 6: things started, you know, the the insurgency started picking up
Speaker 6: steam with IED's rocket mortar attacks, you know, grenades and
Speaker 6: and those type of attacks in the city while while
Speaker 6: we were there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you were on the medical unit.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 6: We were an area support medical battalion, and so the
Speaker 6: advantage of that is we had ambulances and so we
Speaker 6: could ground evac and then quickly that turned into uh
Speaker 6: just evaking to metavacts once, you know, very very quickly
Speaker 6: it became unsafe to drive around town very much.
Speaker 5: And uh yeah.
Speaker 6: And then also like there was one time where I
Speaker 6: did one uh we were at the Palace, which is
Speaker 6: in the northern part, and then the there was a
Speaker 6: hospital that was at the airfield, and you know, I
Speaker 6: drove one time with there was just two of us
Speaker 6: in an ambulance across Mosel to do an evacuation of
Speaker 6: a of a of a routine patient and I was
Speaker 6: just like, this is bananas. And that was the last
Speaker 6: time we did that. I mean, nothing happened, but like
Speaker 6: you know, two kids with pistols could have killed us easily.
Speaker 1: You know, like there was just so much risk and
Speaker 1: threat that even just moving from point to a point
Speaker 1: bre just like out and felt like out in the open,
Speaker 1: like anything could happen.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean it's yes and no, Like you know,
Speaker 6: I think there was enough where pretty quickly, you know,
Speaker 6: there was there was a there was a pretty uh
Speaker 6: pretty legit attack with some grenades right outside of the
Speaker 6: of the gate of where we were at, and so
Speaker 6: we saw those combat h casualties right away, treated them.
Speaker 6: And then you know, the hundred and first Airborne is
Speaker 6: who we got attached to, and they have a lot
Speaker 6: of helicopters, and so the chief medical officer that was
Speaker 6: that was there made the decision quickly like hey, we
Speaker 6: have all these helicopters, we're going to air evac you know, casualties.
Speaker 5: And so that's what we did.
Speaker 6: Now within that, we did so part of what we
Speaker 6: did is we ran an aid station. We had a
Speaker 6: medical professional with us, which was a huge asset, and
Speaker 6: so we ran the aid station with sick call, so
Speaker 6: all your medical stuff and then also all your emergency
Speaker 6: stuff for this base that we were at, and then
Speaker 6: we also provided security for the Division surgeon and the
Speaker 6: Division chaplain for the one hundred and first Airborne, So
Speaker 6: those are the top officers that oversee all those kind
Speaker 6: of operations, and so we quickly became their security detachment
Speaker 6: with only M sixteen's and we weren't issued the ceramic
Speaker 6: plates that would stop bullets until right before redeployed. So
Speaker 6: these soft skin humbies quickly became mad Max with sandbags
Speaker 6: and everything else.
Speaker 5: Ratchet strapped on and things were exciting, and it was quickly.
Speaker 6: I was just terrified because we were trained as medics,
Speaker 6: and I think the mentality was kind of like, well,
Speaker 6: you know, it's going to be okay with some folks,
Speaker 6: and I didn't have that feeling. I was like, well,
Speaker 6: we need to do stuff, and by we that quickly
Speaker 6: meant okay, I'm going.
Speaker 5: To go figure out I'm going to.
Speaker 6: Go talk to folks that are their job is to
Speaker 6: have that aggressive posture and to not take the fight
Speaker 6: to the enemy, and we need to have that mentality
Speaker 6: when we go out.
Speaker 5: We need to figure out our radios, we need to
Speaker 5: figure out.
Speaker 6: Our maps, we need to have a plan if you know,
Speaker 6: things go bad, and so, you know, it was it
Speaker 6: was quickly like hey, look around, is this happening. No,
Speaker 6: it's like okay, well, this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 6: And so it was through just being terrified that I
Speaker 6: kind of looked around and said, hey, this this just
Speaker 6: is not right. There's a lot more we could and
Speaker 6: should be doing. And so it took that initiative and
Speaker 6: you got to do everything you can, even when you
Speaker 6: don't have a lot.
Speaker 1: Now when you got back, you've told me that military
Speaker 1: sort of sighte you down in the room and plage
Speaker 1: you VHS tape like, Karen, now you watched this VHS tape.
Speaker 1: Now you'll leave this experience, fine, tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know it was.
Speaker 6: It was April in two thousand and four when we redeployed,
Speaker 6: and I mean you could look around and just know
Speaker 6: things were not going good and you're like, I'm stoked
Speaker 6: to be out of here and to redeploy again through
Speaker 6: Fort McCoy and which was a base that was mainly
Speaker 6: World War Two. The National Guard uses it a lot,
Speaker 6: and so we were still in the first wave of
Speaker 6: really people getting redeployed from that.
Speaker 5: It was in this room with a chaplain.
Speaker 6: A VHS tape was played of a horse whisper, like
Speaker 6: a documentary kind of that was it was an abstract concept,
Speaker 6: right of like they used to break horses with violence.
Speaker 6: Now they learned how to use communication to better understand
Speaker 6: this animal and not use violence. You just spent a
Speaker 6: year using violence to stay alive and to solve your problems.
Speaker 6: Now is not the time to use that violence anymore.
Speaker 6: Now you should use communication in these other cues, and
Speaker 6: you're breathing to solve your problems. Well, none of those
Speaker 6: dots were connected. It was play the tape, you know,
Speaker 6: horse whisper. The joke was that's good looking and chewing
Speaker 6: was like one of the repetitious things that he kept
Speaker 6: saying in the video with horse training, which I don't
Speaker 6: know anything about. And so a bunch of you know,
Speaker 6: twenty year olds that are just jacked and stoked to
Speaker 6: be not in Iraq anymore, we're left loose in the world,
Speaker 6: and kind of that was it like, hey, good luck,
Speaker 6: you know. So it was a pretty much you're kind
Speaker 6: of reintroduced into your original environment with a much different
Speaker 6: You're not the same person, and so it was it
Speaker 6: was definitely left a lot to be desired, and I
Speaker 6: think everybody figured it out kind of the hard way
Speaker 6: of like we need to be more thoughtful and take
Speaker 6: a lot more approaches to better integrate, and it's still
Speaker 6: really hard better integrate soldiers and people coming back from
Speaker 6: war zones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you feel most helped you reintegrate? I
Speaker 1: know you mentioned that you found some guys in the
Speaker 1: art world who were also Vats.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it took a while for me to find
Speaker 5: those folks.
Speaker 6: It was pre internet and so up until so I
Speaker 6: was able to luckily have the infrastructure of ceramics and
Speaker 6: that community in my corner, having gone to undergrad for
Speaker 6: it and was in graduate school and a friend of
Speaker 6: mine was going to fire this woodkiln in Arizona, and
Speaker 6: so so having that has something to go into as
Speaker 6: just because I was I just felt so uncomfortable being
Speaker 6: back and doing anything besides being in Iraq. Felt comically
Speaker 6: silly in terms of like life and death decisions every day,
Speaker 6: you know, gave you meaning and and a really pointed
Speaker 6: daily activity.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So coming back and just being totally like, hey,
Speaker 6: figure it out now, I was like, I mean, that's
Speaker 6: what happens, right, And so it was like all my
Speaker 6: friends were graduating, and so yeah, thankfully I had that
Speaker 6: opportunity with Straam because to kind of get me an
Speaker 6: opportunity as like you know, like the cops put the
Speaker 6: safety strips out as I'm going one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 6: I hit those and the safety strips were ceramics.
Speaker 1: What kind of conversations you have with other vets who
Speaker 1: are in the art space, specifically ceramics and some of
Speaker 1: the guys you've worked under and with.
Speaker 6: Like back in that that time, So like the conversations
Speaker 6: I have now versus the conversations and you know, this
Speaker 6: is like two thousand and four is when I got back. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I was so so the conversations in two thousand and four.
Speaker 6: I didn't even know you just kind of think everything
Speaker 6: is fine, And I was trying to go on pretending
Speaker 6: that like kind of nothing happened, even though it was
Speaker 6: so like I didn't know how much I changed at
Speaker 6: that time. Yeah, and so that's where I was going
Speaker 6: from that mindset of like, oh yeah, I'm still in
Speaker 6: my mind, Okay, now I'm back to that old person
Speaker 6: that was, you know, in the National Guard.
Speaker 5: But also was.
Speaker 6: An artist and going through my my my ceramics program
Speaker 6: as a graduate student. So the conversations at that time
Speaker 6: were they were kind of like I think it was
Speaker 6: apparent to everybody that knew me before, and also people
Speaker 6: seeing me like this, this guy's really changed a lot,
Speaker 6: but I still couldn't see it because I was in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like that's probably pretty common.
Speaker 6: Yep, yeah, and so and so in like, you know,
Speaker 6: to the to the question of it was like two
Speaker 6: thousand and six when I first kind of heard of
Speaker 6: some other people that were more recent veterans. There was
Speaker 6: one of my professors, Bunny McBride, was in the Army.
Speaker 6: He's definitely an older gentleman at that time. And you know,
Speaker 6: I had my other professor, Chuck Hines, wasn't in the service,
Speaker 6: but you know, those that generation kind of those.
Speaker 5: You know, the numbers of how old those folks would
Speaker 5: be today.
Speaker 6: Would be in their eighties, you know, or nineties, but
Speaker 6: they had seen, you know, so Chuck was great about
Speaker 6: having friends that came back from Vietnam, and so a
Speaker 6: lot of that generation of those professors had seen, you know,
Speaker 6: had friends that had served and came back and knew
Speaker 6: how to kind.
Speaker 5: Of just say, hey, we're here for you.
Speaker 6: I don't know what you went through, but we're going
Speaker 6: to do what we can to take care of you here.
Speaker 6: And that was huge, you know. It actually took until
Speaker 6: two thousand maybe fourteen, the first time I had a
Speaker 6: chance to really have a ceramics residency with other other veterans.
Speaker 6: And backing up, I was also able to kind of
Speaker 6: connect with some other veteran artists, but again after I
Speaker 6: was done with school and and the conversations really were
Speaker 6: about I think how kind of messed up it was
Speaker 6: in that first era of OIF one of what it
Speaker 6: was in Iraq and how it was like so you know,
Speaker 6: like you're kind of trying to like you're really figuring
Speaker 6: it out what's happening as things are changing drastically by
Speaker 6: the day. And and and also that was the time
Speaker 6: I think where one thing.
Speaker 5: Was said that got us there.
Speaker 6: We quickly could see I could see like what was
Speaker 6: said at what got us here? And and everybody I
Speaker 6: talked to was like, yeah, no, this isn't there's no
Speaker 6: WMTS there, And so there was a huge disillusionment in
Speaker 6: terms of the integrity of the whole mission kind of
Speaker 6: felt in question. So that's what a lot of the
Speaker 6: conversations that I had early on with folks was.
Speaker 5: Just this deep feeling of betrayal of the ideas that
Speaker 5: I had.
Speaker 6: Of being like a fourth generation or sixth generation, depending
Speaker 6: how accurate the numbers are, combat veteran.
Speaker 5: And I had this idea in my mind of like, hey,
Speaker 5: I'm a good guy. We're here to get the bad guys.
Speaker 6: It's black and white, cut and dry, and so the
Speaker 6: they're trying to reconcile this idea I had in my
Speaker 6: head and the reality was really really hard.
Speaker 5: That took me a long time to kind of come
Speaker 5: to terms with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did that come out in your art? And
Speaker 1: I know you've told me your artist kind of shifted
Speaker 1: in the last tenful of years, but how did that
Speaker 1: initially kind of manifest itself in the work you're doing.
Speaker 6: Initially it was, you know, I mentioned I'm like a
Speaker 6: fourth fourth generation combat veteran, so Vietnam, Pearl Harbor, Terowa,
Speaker 6: New Guinea, and then the First.
Speaker 5: World War were folks that I knew in my family.
Speaker 6: Is that I was trying to express the human what
Speaker 6: I was, the human experience of being a soldier in combat,
Speaker 6: and then also the conversations that I wish I would
Speaker 6: have had with my grandfather died when right before I
Speaker 6: came back home. He was a medic and actually an
Speaker 6: ambulance driver, so the same kind of job title I
Speaker 6: actually had. He was a medic and an ambulance driver
Speaker 6: in New Guinea and the Second World War. So it
Speaker 6: was like really violent, angry, dark was the work that
Speaker 6: I was making. The Abu Gree pictures of the torture
Speaker 6: images came out right kind of as we were getting home,
Speaker 6: and those were really a I mean, it was heartbreaking
Speaker 6: and just so kind of disgusting to see at that
Speaker 6: that that was done under you know, by by our soldiers.
Speaker 6: And but but it also for me became a really
Speaker 6: powerful image of like this is this is what war
Speaker 6: does to people, and it opens this door for the
Speaker 6: most horrible things that people do to each other. And
Speaker 6: so I got stuck on that track of trying to
Speaker 6: and this is such a kind of a naive and
Speaker 6: it makes me a naive thought of like, well maybe
Speaker 6: if I just make work that shows people, then they'll
Speaker 6: know and then there won't be any more war, you know.
Speaker 5: Like that's that was like truly where I was coming from.
Speaker 6: And it makes me Yeah, I mean it's I think
Speaker 6: it's a noble thing and I think it's worth doing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But I also it sucked me in, you know.
Speaker 1: And then your work you said your work shifted was
Speaker 1: like five years ago and kind of took on. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you use the word a more positive
Speaker 1: bent or what, but like tell us about that. How
Speaker 1: did the work change, and then also what prompted that change?
Speaker 5: So my work changed in twenty two.
Speaker 6: In a huge way because I got to a place
Speaker 6: where I spent two months in the VA Hospital in
Speaker 6: Montana in the Trauma Recovery program, which is an impatient
Speaker 6: PTSD program, And that really saved me for a lot
Speaker 6: of reasons in a lot of ways. And so I
Speaker 6: went from only being able to focus on the negative
Speaker 6: and that so that started in like two thousand and
Speaker 6: four of really focusing and examining and thinking about my actions,
Speaker 6: my family's actions in these in these wars, and I
Speaker 6: conducted myself with honor and integrity. Did I make some mistakes, absolutely,
Speaker 6: but nothing in a really horrific way.
Speaker 5: But that overall.
Speaker 6: Feeling of being a part of something that wasn't didn't
Speaker 6: have integrity to start pulled me in and then I
Speaker 6: just it became a just such a negative spiral. That's
Speaker 6: all I focused on. And that's what I became is
Speaker 6: more and more negative by focusing on that. So in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty I got into this program. Despite my best efforts,
Speaker 6: you know, my life became unmanageable. And that was in
Speaker 6: the terms of war and PTSD. And I was able to,
Speaker 6: through a lot of hard work and help from a
Speaker 6: lot of other people along the way, and all of this,
Speaker 6: be able to come to a place where, I mean
Speaker 6: the real point was in a you know, through prayer
Speaker 6: and in a sweat lodge Fort Harrison that's contracted through
Speaker 6: the Helena Indian Alliance, you know, with about twenty five
Speaker 6: percent of the folks I was in the program with
Speaker 6: were Native Americans. And through the combination of that of
Speaker 6: like that spiritual powerful experience in addition to doing under
Speaker 6: the kind of Western eggheads sitting in fluorescent lights with
Speaker 6: tile in a institution of you know, these cognitive behavioral
Speaker 6: therapy worksheets. Okay, what you know to see all my
Speaker 6: corrupt thought patterns and see how I just distorted my
Speaker 6: distorted thinking and the negative patterns that I have. I
Speaker 6: was able through that break that experience apart, and it
Speaker 6: was truly like being reborn to be able to come
Speaker 6: out and watch the sun come up and the sun set.
Speaker 6: And it's like I remember thinking and just being overwhelmed
Speaker 6: with emotion of like how beautiful this place is, but
Speaker 6: I wasn't able to see it, feel it, or experience
Speaker 6: it because I was so I'd become so in just
Speaker 6: choked off in this negativity that I did to myself.
Speaker 5: And so my work.
Speaker 6: Then after that, like it's before that, it was just
Speaker 6: one note of like dark, horrible, people are bad, everything's terrible,
Speaker 6: and it had that aesthetic and it was aggressive and
Speaker 6: violent and really dark. So then after the fact, so
Speaker 6: the other note that that is in this is like
Speaker 6: my daughter is probably six years old or no, she
Speaker 6: was five, I think at this time, and I realized
Speaker 6: it wasn't for myself. It was for my daughter that
Speaker 6: I decided I needed I needed more help, Like I.
Speaker 5: Could see my you know, my.
Speaker 6: Experiences and who I'd become because of my service and
Speaker 6: inability to recover from it was having a negative impact
Speaker 6: on her. And I was able to you know to
Speaker 6: through some things that you know, find my way into
Speaker 6: this program. That really saved me and and the work
Speaker 6: shifted and I was able to I made a body
Speaker 6: of work that was focused on recovery and also could
Speaker 6: have aspects of beauty in it.
Speaker 5: And so so that was huge.
Speaker 4: That's a super powerful story.
Speaker 1: Like you go in this place one way and like
Speaker 1: through these experiences with other people, Yes you've got the science,
Speaker 1: but then you've also have like the actual experience and
Speaker 1: just totally shift and then that changes things moving forward.
Speaker 1: So we had we talked to this researcher whose name
Speaker 1: is Daisy Fancoork and she said that art is healing.
Speaker 1: And I know when we had a conversation you were
Speaker 1: somewhat skeptical of that. So and and based on what
Speaker 1: you just told us, what's your take on that opinion?
Speaker 5: I think it. I think it can be for a
Speaker 5: lot of people.
Speaker 6: I think the reason that I kind of, I guess
Speaker 6: get a little tight in my chest is that I've
Speaker 6: seen it in a couple of ways that like, again
Speaker 6: one hundred percent, absolutely it can be for a lot
Speaker 6: of people. I've seen it use in a kind of
Speaker 6: a way to be dismissive and as a pejorative in
Speaker 6: the art world to say, well, that's just that therapy art,
Speaker 6: that's just you know, as in like a really really
Speaker 6: kind of negative way interesting. That is so disgusting to
Speaker 6: me that it just dismisses it completely. And again I'm
Speaker 6: able to see now that that's not about me, that's
Speaker 6: about whatever that person and the people that make those comments.
Speaker 6: That has to do with issues that they're that they're
Speaker 6: dealing with. I've never actually done our therapy, it's the
Speaker 6: other thing. It's like I've done you know, therapy, therapy,
Speaker 6: individual group, you know. And so in terms of like
Speaker 6: the other thing is that I through what I focused
Speaker 6: on and was trying to communicate through my art, I
Speaker 6: actually think at a certain point, well, I know, I
Speaker 6: made myself sicker because because I became we become what
Speaker 6: we focus on, and I was focusing on the negative
Speaker 6: at trying to communicate the negative aspects of myself and
Speaker 6: the experience in war overlaid with my family history and
Speaker 6: then you know, going back and forth in that regard,
Speaker 6: that's how I focused on and that that was such
Speaker 6: a terrifying thing to be able to look back and
Speaker 6: see I did this to myself by what I focused on,
Speaker 6: and I was focusing on that to put it in
Speaker 6: my art.
Speaker 5: So it's it's like it's a really in it. I've
Speaker 5: thought about.
Speaker 6: It, like it's hard to know at what point it
Speaker 6: became a great way to kind of have a catharsis
Speaker 6: and to express myself and to find a voice and
Speaker 6: have that.
Speaker 5: So then it became that's what was pulling me in.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I say, like I looked into the void, will the
Speaker 6: void pulled me back into it and it is terrifying.
Speaker 6: It was like terrifying.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like to a certain point it potentially
Speaker 1: helped you initially and then sucked you in and you
Speaker 1: needed to point it in a more positive direction for
Speaker 1: that art to actually have enhance your life.
Speaker 6: Absolutely absolutely, And it was just me. I mean, this
Speaker 6: is like the silliest thing. It was me not understanding
Speaker 6: how powerful what my focus is or was. But the
Speaker 6: thing too, going back with that is to say, you know,
Speaker 6: again through all this, I have amazing friends, and that
Speaker 6: most of them that are artists. You know, the two
Speaker 6: friend groups are veterans and artists or people in the military,
Speaker 6: and the artists friends like unbelievably like I can't say
Speaker 6: enough of how grateful I am for them, but would say,
Speaker 6: you know, like, hey, maybe sometime you could try making
Speaker 6: something beautiful, And I would almost get angry in not
Speaker 6: allowing myself to feel like I felt like I had
Speaker 6: to try to express this experience about war so deeply
Speaker 6: and powerfully that to try to focus on anything beautiful
Speaker 6: felt like it was that like self punishment thing in
Speaker 6: a way, like I just couldn't give myself permission to
Speaker 6: do that.
Speaker 1: Well, take a break, and then Jesse is going to
Speaker 1: explain how you can start making art even if you
Speaker 1: feel as lost as I do with that whole world.
Speaker 1: So if someone's listening to this, they're interested in art.
Speaker 4: But it's also like how do you start? What do
Speaker 4: you tell people?
Speaker 1: Like where do you start for inchance, whether it's pottery, weather, whatever,
Speaker 1: Like what the hell should people do? I find myself
Speaker 1: in that where I'm like, pottery sounds awesome, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: how the hell do you start pottery?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, so you start by starting, And I think
Speaker 6: the biggest thing is to just say, you know, learning
Speaker 6: to throw in the wheel is it's it takes a
Speaker 6: long time. So but working with clay, you can build
Speaker 6: stuff quicker faster, you can you know, within I just
Speaker 6: did a workshop in Great Falls with veterans and in
Speaker 6: a couple of hours you can build a pretty big
Speaker 6: piece that you can then decorate, but not on the wheel.
Speaker 6: And so I would say if find you in your
Speaker 6: local community, community center museum, definitely with ceramics, you're gonna
Speaker 6: need some infrastructure at kiln now if and then drawing
Speaker 6: and painting and.
Speaker 5: Stuff like that.
Speaker 6: There's a ton of stuff right that you can find
Speaker 6: online as resources. But I think one of the great
Speaker 6: things is to sit around with a couple of friends
Speaker 6: and to draw and laugh and then have your friend
Speaker 6: draw on it, because then it takes the pressure off
Speaker 6: that you have to make something and then you can
Speaker 6: try to make something funny. That collaborative thing can be
Speaker 6: a way to do it. That is amazing. The other
Speaker 6: thing is like going back to my days as a teacher.
Speaker 6: It's kind of like interval training. Uh, blind contour drawing.
Speaker 6: If you want to work on your observational drawing skills,
Speaker 6: look up blind contour drawing.
Speaker 5: It's like where you you.
Speaker 6: So the biggest thing if you want to learn how
Speaker 6: to observationally draw is that you have to change the
Speaker 6: way you see because when you look at something, your brain,
Speaker 6: you know, you can't take in all the information. So
Speaker 6: your brain takes this quick snapshot and says fuck it,
Speaker 6: you know, bowl TV. So that's why the initial drawing
Speaker 6: is like, wow, why does this look so simple? It's
Speaker 6: like because that's what your brain is telling you. It
Speaker 6: looks like because you would not just be overwhelmed. So
Speaker 6: it's really blind conto or drawing shows you how to
Speaker 6: see the relationship of parts of things because you just
Speaker 6: look at the piece and you don't move your pencil
Speaker 6: or your pen and so you're you're having you're building
Speaker 6: a connection between your hand and your eye moves and
Speaker 6: your hand moves. You know, you're trying to trace it
Speaker 6: with your hand as your eye moves around it. So
Speaker 6: blind contrue or drawing is that kind of got sucked
Speaker 6: into that.
Speaker 4: That's great, it's a good tip.
Speaker 1: So with when we interviewed that woman I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: the researcher, our final question was what would your one
Speaker 1: big quote about art be? So now we're throwing that
Speaker 1: one to you. What is your one big quote about art?
Speaker 1: If you had to end on one.
Speaker 6: I think I know art is a human need. It's
Speaker 6: it's a fundamental aspect of who we are now, whether
Speaker 6: it's dance, whether it's you know, drawing, painting, sculpture, you know,
Speaker 6: cooking can be you know, decoration, adornment like so, so
Speaker 6: I think I know that that's a fundamental aspect of
Speaker 6: who we are. And so when people you know, so
Speaker 6: back to kind of that art.
Speaker 5: Is healing thing.
Speaker 6: I've known since I've been a little kid that that's
Speaker 6: the one thing that kind of I can soothe myself
Speaker 6: with or also destroy myself with. But back to the
Speaker 6: the soothing myself with by making stuff, by drawing, and
Speaker 6: I think it's a it's a universal Okay, here's the quote.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, art is a universal, fundamental aspect
Speaker 6: art that makes us human. And so every every single person,
Speaker 6: like I know that you know in your heart something
Speaker 6: that really fires you up and go for that live music,
Speaker 6: it can be you know, those things, and that's.
Speaker 5: That's a place where where just the static.
Speaker 6: And the anxiety and the depression and the divisiveness falls away.
Speaker 6: And that's that's where you kind we get connected to
Speaker 6: who we are in our environments and other people in
Speaker 6: and what I believe is a core thing like art
Speaker 6: is that thread that connects us, you know, to ourselves,
Speaker 6: to our our environment, to other people. It's just it's
Speaker 6: the thing that when I came back and when when
Speaker 6: I was just so angry at our country and the
Speaker 6: people that sent us to war, the thing that I
Speaker 6: I had to come up with, why did what?
Speaker 5: Why did I do that?
Speaker 6: It was for the freedom to make our like And
Speaker 6: that's that's the power of where I stand with it
Speaker 6: in my heart of like I know to be true.
Speaker 1: That's a wonderful answer, Jesse. I appreciate you coming on. Man,
Speaker 1: this is really cool with the chat, dude, this is
Speaker 1: this is great.
Speaker 5: Keep up the good work man.
Speaker 1: Thanks for checking out the show, and thanks to Daisy
Speaker 1: and Jesse for jumping on. Daisy's book is Art Cure,
Speaker 1: and you can find Jesse's work on Instagram.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely amazing. Check it out.
Speaker 1: As always, do not forget to hit subscribe and leave
Speaker 1: us a review. That definitely helps the show and that'll
Speaker 1: help you get those updates. It's right when the episodes drop.
Speaker 1: Check out the iHeart video app if you want to
Speaker 1: watch it on that and as always, half on, don't
Speaker 1: die and make some art Glas