The Importance of Arts and Crafts
If you know me well, you know that I am always doing something. For some reason, I just have two modes of being: my creative and active mode and my sleeping mode. Idleness has always been my enemy, and so I fill my time with crafts and hobbies to keep my hands moving and my mind at ease.
Having a creative activity to work on is essential to my life, and most of the time, that activity is quilt making. Regardless of the discipline, however, having a creative outlet is important for all of us.
What’s your art or craft? It doesn’t have to be quilt making (believe me, I totally get how laboring over a quilt is not everyone’s idea of a good time). Do you draw? Scrapbook? Watercolor? Woodwork? Crochet? Bake? Visibly mend? Create succulent gardens? Make stained glass? Play piano? Pour candles? Dye your poodle’s tail? There are endless endeavors that go into the category of “Arts and Crafts” and many that can be as specific as you are. Maybe you like to create photoshop art posters inspired by the novels you read. Or maybe you enjoy crafting new experimental cocktails and inviting friends over to taste your concoctions?
If you don’t have an art or craft that brings you joy, I think it is time for you to find one. And if you think that it’s not for you, I challenge you to think about why you believe that. And I challenge you to read the reasons below why arts and crafts are important in your life:
Art can help you deal with stress and anxiety
Expressing yourself is therapeutic: just like how millions of people can benefit from talk therapy, expressing yourself creatively can also help get the swarm of thoughts and emotions out of your head.
It can help you save money
When you choose to create works of art for your home instead of buying them from the store, you save money and ensure that your home is one-of-a-kind. Also, arts and crafts are great as gifts for friends and family, which is another way to save money.
It helps with your memory
There are many micro-decisions to make while you are doing arts and crafts. In making a quilt, there is a surprising amount of math that I have to do. My mom knits blankets, which requires a lot of counting. And in many other crafts, there is some form of measuring, mixing or planning involved. These things can all help improve memory because they require you to make new neural connections and reflect on past experiences to make predictions for future iterations.
Crafting has self-esteem boosting effects
This is the thing that I love about quilting: making something from start to finish with your own hands feels incredible. It is a huge confidence boost to be able to say to others, or even just to yourself, “I made that”.
It helps you practice patience
As everything becomes faster and more convenient in our current era, we are inevitably losing our skill of patience. Who can wait a week anymore to get a package in the mail when we have become so use to 2 day shipping? So perhaps now more than ever it is essential to practice activities that make us slow down. Yes, it may take you two months to finally finish that Paint-By-Numbers painting, but the hard work and the wait ends up making the finished product even more rewarding.
Crafting can help you find community
When I first started making quilts, I wasn’t trying to find a creative community: how could sitting in my room alone at my sewing machine help me to connect with people? But even in small ways now, my social life revolves around my craft. My social media is filled with quilt makers and artists who I engage with. Whenever I see a beautiful quilt at a market or a gallery, I make sure to talk with the artist and share my information. Passion attracts passion, so once you get into a creative endeavor, you can’t help but see it all around you.
I guess I see the world through quilt-colored glasses these days. And to use some arts and crafts to illustrate this, I made this photoshop for you to enjoy (which reminds me of another important point, that you don’t have to be good at your creative acts either):
I hope this helps inspire you to open up your sketchbook tonight or take that candle making class this weekend. Or at least just to feel grateful that as humans we have powerful brains and dextrous hands and we can make some pretty cool stuff!