"... research found that a lack of touch produced brain damage."
(Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 76)
Statement:
During this section of the reading, I was compelled to think about nature and how a lack of experiencing such can lead to mental illness or brain damage. As noted in the reading, human touch is vital to our well-being, but connection with our planet is also vastly important. Before starting this piece, I took a walk around my neighborhood and closely inspected different plant species, touching them and noting their differences. I was walking barefoot, feeling the raw earth beneath me. I brought many specimens back with me and decided to use them as my means of painting. I painted the flowers I collected and pressed them on the paper. I then painted over leaves to achieve imprints. I used flower stems in the place of paintbrushes. I didn't use any materialistic objects such as paintbrushes for this piece - just my fingertips and parts of different plants.
This tactile experience reminded me how important it is to shed our materialistic obligations for a little while and fully immerse ourselves in the nature that surrounds us. It's refreshing to interact with living things that are not conventional beings like humans or pets, as we often take these things for granted. It's almost too easy to get lost in the societal worlds we have created and forget that we are all part of a living, breathing planet. Reconnecting with nature is essential to having a positive headspace, and forgetting that we are part of something bigger can be detrimental to our states of being.
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