FAQ

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What is your art called?

The art I create is called Painting Meditation. It is designed to be a bridge or "gateway" between art, meditation, and contemporary medicine.

 

What is your art based on?

My art is based on the ancient Indian practice of Trāṭaka meditation. This is a form of meditation done with the eyes open. A person simply practices staring gently at an inanimate object for a few moments, allowing the eye muscles and optic nerve to relax. It is well known that 80% of the stimuli our body processes comes through our eyes (https://liveanddare.com/trataka/). Many research studies have concluded that when the optic nerve is given fewer or more gentle stimuli to process, the entire nervous system is able to relax and operate at more optimal levels. There are many known benefits (https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-benefits-of-meditation#section3 ) of allowing the nervous system to exit its constant state of "fight or flight" response caused by  the demanding world we live in today. This can include the constant and bright stimuli from cell phones, tablets, and tv's which can increase stress, anxiety, feelings of loneliness and depression, tension headaches, migraines (https://yoursightmatters.com/tiny-screens-can-cause-big-vision-problems/ ), increased heart rate and blood pressure, and even retinal deterioration (https://www.rfsafe.com/study-cell-phone-radiation-can-damage-eyes-cause-early-cataracts/ ) .

 

My art is designed to be an antidote to these common ailments. Simply by taking the time to look at a surface that calms the messages sent through the optic nerve, the natural rhythms of the brain (https://futurism.com/science-could-let-you-reset-your-bodys-clock ) and body can be restored (https://www.amerisleep.com/blog/reset-sleep-clock/ ). After gazing at one of my paintings for a few moments, a person can start to experience the benefits of a lowered heart rate, relaxation of the eye muscles, and a release of serotonin and oxytocin. This can result in lowered blood pressure, reduced eye strain, relief of headaches, stress, anxiety, and increased levels of empathy and joy.

 

Can you show evidence of any of these benefits scientifically or medically?

Yes, so far I have conducted a small research study including 10 participants between the ages of 70-90 years old. Each participant's blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen intake was taken prior to looking at one of my paintings for one minute. Following this focused 60-second experiment, each participants' blood pressure was taken again. In all cases the participants' blood pressure went down. In most cases each person's heart rate also decreased while their oxygen intake increased. It should be noted all participants were calmly sitting for an entire hour before participating in this experiment.

 

While this experiment was rudimentary, its was a start.

 

To further my research I have partnered with UCF to conduct more advanced and in-depth research studies related to the benefits of viewing my art as well at its positive relationship to improved health and well being.

 

I am constantly in search of new researchers, doctors, and trial clinics to collaborate with who may have an interest in the connection between art and well-being. If you are someone who is interested in working with me (or you know someone who may be interested in working with me) or learning more about this study, please feel free to email me directly at: leahunell@gmail.com . My immediate areas of interest lie in anesthesiology, obstetrics, neurology, psychiatry, and psychology.

 

I believe that the connection between art, health and even developmental learning is the future of contemporary medicine and I hope to be a small part of it.

 

How does your art lead a person through a visual meditation?

Each of my paintings are meant to guide the viewer through gradual undulations in color and visual texture allowing the brain, body, and nervous system to rest, relax and reset its natural rhythms.

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What does your art represent?

Every painting I create is based on a concept related to nature, human well-being, or the state of affairs locally, nationally, or internationally. Each piece I create it titled and has a detailed meditation one can read as an introduction to experiencing the many healing benefits of one of my Painting Meditations. To read a few of these meditations, you can visit my online gallery at: https://www.leahunell.com/

 

I have four main subjects that I paint: color fields, abstract flowers and landscapes, and linear motion.

 

How did you develop this type of art?

I believe that the many experiences of our lives teach us lessons along the way that one could say may be "kismet" or fate. In my case, there were four major experiences in my life that lead to my Painting Meditations.

 

Childhood Vision Issues

When I was young, I had a very difficult time learning to read. I wasn't interested in reading (I would have much rather spent hours painting or drawing).  The letters on the page were just black shapes and my eyes were more drawn to the white spaces between the words. For me it was a laborious task asking my brain to translate letters into groups of sounds that somehow related the words I spoke. Interestingly enough, I loved to write. I could write for hours (of course I spelled phonetically, which my teachers never appreciated, but allowed me to express the stories in my mind). But, my mom always encouraged me. She allowed me to be creative artistically, visually and with the written word from a young age. She was also a fierce researcher (and a mother who was determined not to let her daughter slip through the cracks). She found an unprecedented research program being offered in the town where we lived near Yale University and I spent months going to vision therapy. I hated every second of it, but it did teach me to focus my eyes the way everyone else does. Somehow I secretly managed to remember how to let my vision blur, to let my mind to relax. I would do this when reading boring pages after pages wore my eye muscles out, or if a teacher would lecture endlessly in class. I could transport myself to a state of relaxation (or as I now realize, a state of meditation). Of course zoning out in school is always frowned upon, but I think it made me realize that there was something about the eye muscles, the optic nerve and the brain that required this 'rest' during the day, and now as an adult, I'm glad I held on to this interesting shred of youthful insight. I do believe this will be a part of the scientific study of my art as it relates to Trāṭaka meditation.

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Competitive Figure Skating

I was very lucky as a child to be introduced to the sport of figure skating. My maternal grandmother (a Holocaust survivor) adored the ice as a child in Vienna and was eager to share the magic of the experience with me. I didn't catch on right away (I was not a natural athlete), but I loved gliding, spinning and soaring through the air.  It was freeing physically and mentally for me. By the time I was in high school, I captured a spot on Team USA Synchronized Skating with the Dearborn Crystallettes. It was a dream come true. Thousands of hours on and off the ice, begging my body to be as limber, balletic, and light as the other girls finally paid off. There was one spot open in my hometown and I got it. I was the youngest one on the team by many years and it showed. I was a nervous wreck at every competition. By my fourth year on the team, I managed to find some confidence, but only because our coaches brought in a sports psychologist for our team. He taught us to visualize our routine while sitting on the floor, not moving any part of our bodies, only seeing each movement, feeling each beat of music in our mind with our eyes closed. We had to practice this every night before we went to bed 6 times. For me and for my team, this translated into finding "the zone" so many successful athletes refer to after a great performance. That year we had great success and nearly qualified for the World Championships. Those visualization skills stuck with me and finally, in college, I really hit my stride as a competitive skater. Looking back I realize that the "zone" I worked so hard to find myself in, was really just a meditative state.

 

Preparing for Birth

A few years ago when my husband and I decided to start a family, the only thing I could think about was the well told story of agony while giving birth. Nearly every week of my pregnancy we talked about some aspect of preparing for birth - where, when, with who, in what environment, what the outcomes would be, etc. Nothing helped. I was freaking out. No one made it sound doable, safe or survivable. We went to class after class, we asked question after question. Every answer was pretty much the same - its the worst pain of your life! One aspect that worried me about the pain was my history of passing out when I was injured. As an athlete, I had been very lucky but I had experienced some injuries, and by the time I was in high school I had passed out at least 4 times from those injuries. The pain was not even that bad, it was just my body's was of escaping the pain and re-calibrating my body.  Of course once I passed out, there was always a furry of people trying to help and nothing I could really do to prevent it, even when I knew it was coming. So, when we asked questions about my tendency to pass out when in pain, the nurses would always tell me I would immediately be rushed in to have an emergency c-section as the heart rate of the baby would plummet along with mine if I passed out.

 

Luckily, along our journey a midwife we came across suggested I contact a hypnobirth specialist. I was pretty skeptical, but I figured it never hurt to try something, especially when the outcome from not trying anything sounded so grim. So, after many weeks of going back and forth about meeting with this woman, we finally went. Oh my gosh! It was heavenly!  For starters, she really educated us about the physical process of giving birth. Not just the obvious pushing the baby out, but how the body reacts, why it reacts in certain ways at certain stages and how a calming state of being, releasing breaths and relaxation of specific muscles (the jaw and eyebrows) could literally get me just out of the woods enough not to pass out during birth - my biggest fear. So I trained with this hypnotherapist for a few months and practiced along with recordings of her voice. I gained confidence in myself towards being able to give birth, I felt educated about what was to come. The more I practiced, the more I realized hypnosis was basically the same state of being I was in when I attended yoga class. I had done a lot of yoga after my competitive years of skating were over. She suggested I get back into yoga (which I had stopped along with most physical activity the further I got along in my pregnancy - more out of fear of hurting the baby than for any other reason). The combination of the two seemed to soothe my anxiety about "the big day" and I started to be able to enter a calm place more easily, the more I practiced.

 

When the big day did come, I cannot say it was pain free, and I did come close to passing out, but I didn't. And if I had, I know we had found a team of people who would have helped me recover and carry on. But the practice of getting into a hypnotic state did get me through the nearly 24 hour process. And of course the prize at the end was well worth it. We have a healthy, very active three year old now and we both lived (gratefully) to tell the tale.

 

Like my experience with learning to read and my competitive days of figure skating, preparing to give birth seemed to teach me something about myself I hadn't bothered to pay attention to before hand - that I was quite capable of finding and entering this calm state of being.

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Motherhood

At first motherhood was just a puffy white cloud of happiness, cuddles, smiles and absolute joy. It was everything I ever wanted. But when I had to return to work, everything changed. I started to sink. Early 5am mornings, the rush to drop off the baby (who I could not bare to part with), the long day at work, the rush home, the getting ready for the next day, the lack of sleep, it all started to wear on me. I very privately started to sink into a constant state of anxiety and depression. "How can I do this all alone?  I'm drowning.  There is no one to help me. I have to find something else to do. I miss my baby. I'm exhausted. I hate my job." Something had to give. I'd lay awake at night trying to figure out what responsibility I could take off my plate. My wonderful husband worked hard, and constantly, so I could not ask him to help me with anything. I was on my own mentally, physically, and metaphorically. Our families were plane rides away and none of them could really solve this for me. I had to figure out for the first time in my life what would make ME happy. Not what I needed to do to make everyone else in my family proud of me or happy. I literally had to rescue myself.

 

So after months and months of looking at job postings and considering going back to school, I found my calling when I was looking for new projects to pursue with my students on Pinterest. I found this form of painting called "fluid acrylic pouring." Just watching it was mesmerizing. I started studying recipes, types of paint, techniques, anything I could find to teach myself more. I had painted a great deal in college at Michigan State University, but ultimately decided to focus on ceramics because I connected best with those professors.

 

So, a decade after finishing my art degree in college, I was all of a sudden taken back to where I started. Making art. Creating. I found myself the happiest when I was doing exactly what I loved most a as a kid. Painting. It was so simple.

 

And yet it wasn't.

 

First I had to tell my husband what was going on. Then I had to tell him I wanted to quit my job. Then I needed to hustle to find a way to make money doing what I loved.

 

So, one fateful morning it all came together. On Mother's Day morning my husband arrived home after working the night shift and excitedly told me he'd be traveling a great deal.  What?! More?! On my own?! I can't!!! I'm drowning.

 

And out it all came. The tears, the anxiety, the pain and after he asked the question.... "well, what DO you want?".... out came the plan. 

 

And so I started. I spent a year just painting. Just exploring, perfecting my art. When I finally sat down to look at it all, to reflect on it, to explain what it all meant, what I'd created, it was simple. These were my meditations. This was my escape, my happy place. The state of being where I was truly being me. Thus, my Painting Meditations were born.

 

Is mediation religious?

For me, meditation is simple. It's just the time and practice of being. There are many formal types of meditation and some are tied to different religions, but for me, meditation is just the same as it was "finding the zone" as an athlete or "relaxing" during hypnosis.  Sitting on the couch and staring at a wall is meditation. It's really the state of doing nothing. When we take the time to do this, our thoughts come to us, we are able to recognize them, process them, face them, deal with them, move on, and feel peace, happiness, and joy. My paintings are designed to take us to that place, even if it is just briefly. Our minds work quickly. We do not have to meditate all day to find inner peace or happiness, we just need to find a few moments for ourselves to be us.

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Do you offer workshops? Art lessons? Corporate events?

Yes, I love teaching. I have taught art for the last 15 years to every age group from 4 years old to 98 years old, from public and private schools, to college level courses and now even at retirement centers. I have lead workshops of many varieties. Sometimes they are a ladies night-in, a birthday party, or a fundraiser.

 

I love doing live painting performances for corporate events. Sometimes they include meditation sessions, sometimes people just get lost in the process of watching me paint on a large scale. Sometimes I do a combination: group meditation, live demonstration, and then hands on art.

 

For me, its all a dream come true. As long as I'm creating, I'm happy.

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Where do you display your art?

For the most part my art has been purchased by private collectors. However in the last few years I have really expanded my work to fit corporate settings such as hotels, hospitals, restaurants, and office spaces.

 

I love creating custom work. I can match the color pallet and size for nearly any space, transforming a room into an uplifting meditative experience.

 

If you have any special requests, feel free to reach out to me to discuss your vision at: 913-424-7718.

 

Where do you make your art?

I have a gorgeous home studio where I am able to bask in three walls of natural light as it infuses the pieces I create each week. It is the perfect space for me. I can be home and accessible as a mom and I can create the work of my dreams.

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What mediums do you use in your art?

I primarily use acrylic paint because it is non-toxic and almost 100% VOC (volatile organic compound) free. I have developed all different types of pouring medium combinations to achieve different cellular effects in my paintings.  Most importantly, I want the air in our home to be safe for my family no matter what art I am creating on a day to day basis. A big goal of mine is to leave as small a footprint on our precious atmosphere and earth as I can, while still creating art that fills my soul and those viewing my work with happiness, peace and joy.

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