I myself am an artist who enjoys creating art pieces of all kinds when I have the chance. With the start of high school, I have become very busy, but I still make an effort to give myself the time to make some art. I find that for me, making art has a calming affect, and it helps me feel a lot better when I’m feeling especially sad or stressed.
It took me a long while to pick out a topic for this project, as I wanted to choose something that truly peaked my interests. I reflected over my likes, interests, and hobbies and finally decided on a topic I was quite excited about.

I considered the ways that art has helped me express myself, relieve stress, as well as give my mind a fresh boost to continue on with my day. I began to ponder if there was any scientific studies or data that could support the therapeutic benefits that I as an artist have received from practicing art. If art can help someone like me to calm my busy mind, could practicing art be beneficial to people who experience problems with their mental health?

[Please see bottom of post for the sites that I used to obtain the information that I used in my infographic]

After I started collecting data and learning more about my subject, I came upon the realization that there were indeed many scientific advances in this field, but there wasn’t a lot of data that I could use in this project that I could accompany with graphics. I read a lot of interesting articles about this topic, and I used the various facts and studies that I read about to compile enough data to make an appealing infographic.

I chose three sites in particular that I thought had very interesting studies, analytics and facts relating to my subject. Firstly, I found an article on Artnet News that talked about the changes in cortisol levels (a hormone related to stress) in people who partook in small art session. Upon research, I found that this company is a widely respected, sizable news outlet that I deemed as a trustable source.
The second site that I found was an article with a vast selection of facts about this topic, published by the World Health Organization. Of course, the WHO is an official organization so that is why I also deemed this site to have real, trustable information.
Lastly, somewhere in the vast articles that I read, I stumbled upon an article that I thought was very interesting and worth putting in my infographic. I found the article on ScienceDirect, a recognized website known for having an extensive database of bibliographic, scientific, and medical publications. The article talks about a pilot study, conducted for the purpose of measuring possible changes in dementia patients after partaking in a sculpting class for a number of weeks. I found the results very intriguing and I hope the field does more studies involving sculpting as a form of art therapy.
Overall, through my immense research, I learned a lot about the advances in this field, and learned a lot about how different forms of art therapy are indeed beneficial to people struggling with mental illnesses.

As I was reading these articles about creativity, mental health, and how the two could be brought together, I also learned about the different ways that one could access such therapy. This made me realize that having sites like this across the internet that not only help people become aware of solutions that can be utilized, but can also help them get in touch with people they may need help from. I, myself, currently have a person in my family who is coping with a mental illness that interferes with memory, so I understand how crucial it is for people around said patient to be aware of the situation and the different ways that they can help them.

[Sites that I used to complete my infographic in APA formatting:]