“If I don’t make it, I can always teach.” Maybe, but you may not be any good at it—because it’s a different skill set. And you may not like it, because it’s not only a different skill set, it requires a different mindset.

And be assured, just because you’re good at one (producing art or teaching art), does not mean that you will be good at the other. In fact, I have recommended that certain people go into teaching who I would never recommend be performers; likewise I have suggested that others should set their goals on performing and forget the “security” of teaching.

And speaking of that whole teaching security thing, it doesn’t really exist. Teaching has become far less secure over the past 10 years for a number of reasons. And then there’s the educational bureaucracy, which has become far more onerous in roughly the same amount of time. These factors, taken together, make teaching in the arts a far less attractive occupation than it might have been several years ago.

“Well, if I teach, I will have time to do my art afterwards.” No, you won’t. Those who try this find that the only way to pull it off is to slack on one or the other or relegate one or the other to part-time status. Good teaching takes enormous time and preparation. Yes, this is true even in those studio courses where it seems is that all the instructor does is wander in and offer a few suggestions and some critiques. Any instructor worth his/her salt has already been thinking about members of the class and how best to facilitate their development. The class is merely an implementation of those strategies. Thus there is little time left for creating art.

Likewise, if you spend the majority of your time, effort, and ingenuity on producing your art, you will be less than a good teacher. Teaching requires just as much time, effort, and creativity as producing art, so when one spends all of that artistic capital on making art, there is less available for teaching. Students may not understand this until years later, if ever. They may never know they’ve been short-changed—until they try to compete with others who had teachers and coaches who were more concerned with training their students than with their own success in the artistic marketplace.

The other thing you will likely be after a day of either teaching or making art, is tired. You simply may have insufficient energy to do whichever one comes second, at least on a daily basis.

While it is possible to be a really good full-time teacher and a really good full-time artist at the same time, the individuals who can pull it off are very rare. Unless the teacher somehow combines teaching and making art, the quality of the art or volume of output is sure to suffer.

And that may not be a bad thing. The world can still enjoy the work of the artist/teacher, just not as much of it. In the meantime, the world gains the benefit of a person of a person who not only imparts information, but who attempts to shape the experiences of students so those students can realize their own potential, a person who guides, encourages, and challenges his/her students to become the artists and teachers of tomorrow. And those are valuable people.

Although we seem to be living in a post-factual, science-denying society, I still have a tendency to put faith in scientific findings. And one of the things that science has found is that art is good for us—neurologically. While there are numerous studies that tell us how we benefit our brains if we make art (for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here), what is more interesting—to me at least—is how art impacts the mental health of audience members.

My interest in this topic began with a Salon article on “Why Abstract Art Makes Our Brains Hurt so Good.” The article, written by art critic Noah Charney, describes the work of Nobel-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, which says essentially that abstract art forces the viewer to engage in bottom up thinking. This is thinking that “includes mental processes that are ingrained over centuries: unconsciously making sense of phenomena.” Bottom up thinking stands opposed to “top-down” thinking which is based on personal experience and knowledge; such thinking is used “to interpret formal, symbol, or story-rich art.” Thus “looking at formal art is actually a form of passive narrative reading;” abstract art, however, “strips away the narrative, the real-life, expected visuals [and] requires active problem-solving….It makes our brains work in a different, harder way at a subconscious level.” Charney concludes his article by stating, “Abstract art is where we began, and where we have returned. It makes our brains hurt, but in all the right ways, for abstract art forces us to see, and think, differently.”

But it’s not just abstract art.

One British study concentrated on “beautiful paintings” and found that simply viewing images of beautiful paintings increased blood-flow in the brain “just as it increases when you look at somebody you love.” The study concluded that there is now proof that “beautiful paintings make us feel much better.”

Study after study has found that the benefits of experiencing art include decreased stress levels and “a significant improvement is psychological resilience.” One study concluded that “The brain hardwired to process art” and generates pleasurable emotions while doing it.

Kevin Loria writing for Business Insider looked at a number of studies on the impact of viewing art. They found that:

• “Viewing paintings triggered responses in brain regions associated with visual understanding and object recognition, as might be expected, but viewing artwork also was connected to activity associated with emotions, inner thoughts, and learning.”
• There was an increase in critical thinking and social tolerance after visiting an art museum.
• Arts programs may help older adults stave off cognitive decline. Viewing art can “relieve mental fatigue and restore the ability to focus.”

Some studies have evaluated brain response not only to visual, but to auditory arts as well and found that the benefits, though slightly different, were still there. “When you’re doing [either experiencing or making] art, you brain is running full speed.” Other studies have shown that any art is of benefit in making the brain healthier. For example, there is new research that makes “a strong case that engagement with music, dance and other arts may be just as powerful [as exercise and taking on new challenges] for preserving mental health and acuity throughout our lives.”

And studies are ongoing. New technologies are being developed to measure exactly how and how much benefit we receive from engagement with the arts.

The conclusion is that what we as artist do is important, not only because it allow us to say what needs to be said, but because the artifacts and performances we produce have a positive neurological impact on the brains of our audiences. Studies are just beginning to measure the degree of this impact. We do important work; science offers the proof.