“Art allows you to express your own being.”
This may seem like a cliché, but it can transform our own conscience according to the next guest featured in Art Journeys: Michael Benton, a local artist focused on ink on paper and acrylic. Benton grew up in Richmond Hill but was fortunate to have a cottage right here in Muskoka.
Benton spends his days working in property management to support his art, but Benton claims that art is always his priority.
“It plays a dominant role in my life; it's an expression of creativity, right? So it's an expression of being alive. It's just for overall general health, fun, curiosity, and good living.”
Benton considered Muskoka as one of the frontiers of creativity. In the small village of Windermere, Benton uses the landscapes to create his own mindscapes, where he explores himself and connects with the space around him.
When summer ends and the cottagers go home, Benton can be found substitute teaching at local high schools and running a dual credit program in partnership with Georgian College. In Benton’s dual credit, he offers students a chance to express themselves without the typical guidelines of any regular art class.
“The course is centred on creativity, but from more of a student's perspective. They can connect themselves to their own creativity without being told to do this thing or that thing. It's quite different from any other art class out there. They sit and create their own work, which is what making art is about, right? It's a personal thing. Techniques and things you can always look up; you can take workshops. Everything is about refining over time, not trying to pack it all into 14 classes because that’s impossible. Art class should be finding who you are. And here are some tips and tricks with some media that might get you the ball rolling if you haven't already found it.” Benton stated.
It’s definitely different from your typical high school art class. I asked Benton what inspired him to apply this teaching technique to his class, and he told a personal story regarding his own experiences in high school. When his close friend passed unexpectedly, he created a piece of art that reflected his own emotions through the process of grief. This piece should have been about the story behind it and that alone, but some teachers had mixed feelings due to the art piece’s stylistic choices. This pushed Benton to make art classes where you don’t have to follow any rubric or set standards of what art has to be. But simply to explore your own existence.
Benton’s idea of why Art Matters is very abstract; he doesn’t believe in a world without it, and if it were, he wouldn’t want to explore it.
“Art matters because the individual expressing their own being matters; it's wellness, it's just what we have innately built in us to do. And art matters also because play matters. So the more you do it, the more fun you have, the healthier you are, and the better you get at expressing yourself.” Benton said right after posing the question of why art matters.
When asked if there was anything Benton wanted to share with the readers, he left the interview with a final thought of understanding.
“Pay attention to the mystery of consciousness. If this journey's taught me anything, it's that consciousness remains undefined for very good reason. It's so massive and dynamic. We're not going to come up with a singular theory of everything. The more you pay attention to your ability to be aware of things and of yourself, your emotions, your own creativity. The more magical life is. So I wish everybody the best journey, because mine's been incredible.”
The thought process that Benton shared got me pondering on the idea of art and play. From such a young age, we all run and play and explore the world, but as we get older, we as humans tend to lose this innate ability to find the innocent bliss that one experiences as a child. I believe wholeheartedly that Benton is trying to convey the idea of bringing play and art back into our lives; without the constraint of rules and right and wrong, we can fully understand ourselves. Humans are built to be comfortable, so we must enjoy the parts that make us feel at peace.