When I was three years old, my little sister, who was 11 months old, was diagnosed with a Stage III Wilms’ Tumor. Wilms’ Tumors are kidney cancer and, luckily, have a high remission rate when caught early enough. My sister, Grace, was in treatment for just over a year. She turned one and two in…
Vision in Mantis Shrimp
Color vision is a complex and interesting subject to learn more about because of how significant it is in our understanding and perception of the world and how diverse color vision is in our world. I find it fascinating to think about the varieties of colors we see and how they make up our…
An Artistic Outlet for Alzheimer’s
Having a relative who had Alzheimer’s, I have always been intrigued by how our brains can affect how well we perform daily activities and go about our daily lives. Upon learning about van Gogh’s struggles with his health and observing the deterioration in van Gogh’s speech through the letters between him and his brother Theo,…
Explaining the Senses: a Nearly Impossible Task
As an avid thinker and enjoyer of the arts, I often find myself questioning what the definition of art is. This definition is extremely hard to obtain, mostly because all people perceive art differently. Art, as an experience, is incredibly different for every person who observes it. In my “Arts on the Brain” class, the…
The Endless Colors of the Sky By Jai Arora
Ever since I was a little kid, I have always been fascinated with the beauty of the sky. I would be the peculiar kid that would wake up early on weekend mornings just to watch the sunrise and also the kid that would stop everything he was doing to watch the sunset in the evening….
Exploring the Tortured Artist
The tortured artist, an artist that struggles (either within himself or against the world) and gains artistic talent from it, is an archetype that the western world has been familiar with for hundreds of years. Most often this encompasses mental illnesses that the artist suffers from, however it is important to question if the uphill…
The Northern Lights
When I first saw the journal question “What color is the sky” I immediately thought that this was a tricky question because the sky has no defined color. However, when we shared our journal entries with the rest of the class, I realized that even if I have always believed the sky has no color…
Mass Hysteria: Anybody’s Illness
I’ve always had an interest in mental disorders and the effects they can have on a person. My interest in psychological disorders was furthered after we researched and “diagnosed” Van Gogh with his own mental disorder. I’ve always been fascinated with how the mind can become sick like the rest of our body. However, there…
Art Therapy for Incarcerated Suffering from Mental Illness
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of 2005, more than half (61%) of prison and jail inmates had a mental health problem, the majority of them (24%-40%) suffering from major depressive or mania symptoms. Major depressive disorder is characterized by persistent episodes of depression with loss of pleasure/interest in life, and mania (manic…
A Spectrum Beyond the Eye
One topic in this class that immediately intrigued me was tetrachromacy. I’ve always had the question of “What if what I view as blue, someone else views it as what I see as purple?”. A question like that may sound ridiculous to an adult who has had no background in the dynamics of vision…