Art Jam / Art Jamming - a Fun Therapy for Hectic Everyday Life

Art Jam - an activity that has become popular and more widespread in previous couple of years. Art Jamming, in essence, is a fun, relaxing and boundary-free activity, which is also seen as an effective relaxation therapy for people to get out of their daily hectic life and find a peace of mind. If you are not familiar with Art Jam, below is a brief introduction for you to understand what Art Jamming is and its therapeutic effect for one's body and soul.

In practice, art jamming takes place between yourself, a bunch of paints, a couple of painting brushes and somewhere to put the paint on - which can be a piece of canvas, a plain piece of cloth, canvas bags, canvas shoes or anything that you could think of.

During the process of painting, one can release their emotion with strokes of colour, different colour combinations and enjoy a deep level of concentration. All these could bring you away from your worries and freshen up your mind. 

When talking about painting, whether it's oil or acrylic painting, some people would immediately have a denial reaction, like 'Oh, come on, I can't paint!', or 'I've never pick up a painting brush since primary school!'.

However, all these denial phase is exactly why art jamming is used as a therapy to release daily life pressure. As a matter of fact, Art Jamming is suitable for anyone, whether you have experience in painting or not. Art Jamming does not require, nor develop one's painting technique. One would also NOT be criticize on the way of painting nor the level of creativity.

Whether you are working in an office with emails coming in and out every minutes; in a shop dealing with customers, or as a busy home-staying person taking care of household on 24-7 duty, you can enjoy art jamming without any painting technique at all.

It's undeniable that human beings are born in nature to be collectively behaved in social settings. A large amount of social norms is actually affecting how human behave everyday. The timing for your lunch, the expected dress code between opposite sex or the expected behaviour in times of receiving a gift etc, is all subtly regulated among society. People develop negative energy when they are not happy with the norm, when they failed to follow the norm, or when they cannot force themselves to suit the norm.

In art jamming, all these social expectations and norms are out of sight. You can enjoy freely on how to paint your own piece of art, what tools to use (or to use tools or not), what colour combination you want etc. There is no boundary, rights and wrongs, being normal or not in art jamming. What you can enjoy is an ultimate freedom in making your own decision, without the need in consulting anyone.

Another therapeutic aspect of art jamming is the deep level of concentration that it brings during your painting process. You concentrate solely on yourself and the painting, while the whole decision-making process is completely according to your own heart.

There are many occasions in daily life that you simply cannot follow your own heart to make decisions. For instance, it could be that you are following the social norm and don't want to disappoint somebody and force yourself in doing something that you do not want to do. One example is being 'sociable'. The 'norm' in the society is that you should be sociable and enjoy yourself in parties. Otherwise, you would be named as 'anti-social'. But ask yourself, do you really enjoy all parties every time? Or do you sometimes prefer to spend the time in another way?

Deep level of concentration could pull you out from your daily routine and mental burdens.  One might say that the temporary drifting away from reality during Art Jamming is not permanent, yet the relaxation that you can get from the activity is still very remarkable. It also helps you to realize who exactly you are.

The best way to feel the positive energy and the therapeutic effect from Art Jamming is to try it yourself. You can start by getting some simple painting tools and paint at home, or check out Art Jamming activities organized by your local art jamming organizations.

Enjoy art jamming and its positive impact for your body and soul.