"There’s a lot of suffering in thinking you should know and be right and figure things out and that sort of thing. 

When we are out there in ego, we believe we can know and should know. 

When we come back to center, we realize that we don’t know and we don’t need to know. 

                                                    So it’s a coming back to center that has us on the right path."  

                                                                                                                                 - Cheri Huber

 

    I love this quote! It is the perfect quote to showcase the strength of our brain, it's adaptability.

    I wanted to create a work of art that would visually remind peeps how to take care of their brain and keep it active and sharp and healthy. 

    So here it is.  A medical collage that I created on a 12 x 16 wood board using paint, inks, a vintage math workbook from the 1920s, vinyl lettering and my 15 year old medical school anatomy book :) 

Just like you, this artwork is one of a kind and will never again be repeated.

Here is what the art means to me:

When we are young children, our brains grow at amazing speed, forming an immense amount of neuronal connections. It is very plastic and resilient, open to all new learning experiences. In fact, when we are very young, only months old, our skull bones do not even cover our entire brain… the fontenelles are open and the plates of the skull are not yet fused.

As we grow our skull plates fuse shut and our brain becomes a closed pressure system. And then as we age, at some point most adults plateau their learning. Open ended wonder becomes a list of memorized facts and figures and assumptions that work on their own private loop.

We transition from living life with an open eyed sense of wonder, and we start becoming satisfied with just learning “facts.”

We label things, and fit them in to the framework we’ve established.

We collapse what is possible into facts and figures and answers.

We start functioning on a repeat loop… with only mild variation from day to day.

Wake up. Eat cereal. Put on socks and shoes. Commute to work. Sit in a cubicle. Commute home. Watch TV. Go to bed. Repeat.

Relying too much on routine and structure, we stop practicing open-ended thinking. We lose our adaptability. Our brains become more fixed, more rigid, more closed. We become “closed-minded.”

Our brains can remain adaptable… new pathways and neuronal connections can constantly evolve, even in adulthood, but this takes new and varied input.

Somehow, adults stop experiencing the world in an open ended state of wonder and become over-reliant on facts and labels. The brain stops trying to make new neuronal connections, and instead relies on the ones already built and established. It loses it’s plasticity.

The antidote to that? Maintaining an open ended sense of wonder… continuously questioning things without a need for an answer... experiencing life through the wide eyed joy usually reserved for the young… these are the best things you can do to preserve the health of your brain.

This artwork makes the perfect reminder to stop focusing on facts and labels and instead come back to center and remember -- we don't know everything and we don't need to know everything. 

Maintaining an open minded sense of wonder is what the health of our brain is all about!

This healing artwork is an original mixed media design on an 12 x 16 wood board using paint, inks, a vintage math workbook from the 1920s, vinyl lettering and my 15 year old medical school anatomy book.

It comes framed in an eco-friendly 80% recycled composite black frame, ready to hang, and signed by the artist.

To your brain's health!

xoxo, Laura