Art and music contribute positively to an individual’s well-being. (see references below)
Art and music help reduce stress hormones like cortisol, and trigger the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin that improve mood.
The Art Always Foundation helps spread the influence of art, not for ‘visual fluff’, but because of it’s enormous benefits on human psyche.
Art and music helps well-being in the following ways:
Reducing stress: Art and music can help reduce stress hormones like cortisol, and trigger the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin that can improve mood. [1]
Improving brain function: Art and music can improve brain function, and can even enlarge certain brain structures. [1]
Improving mood: Art and music can improve mood, and can help people feel connected to others and access their memories. [1]
Improving physical health: Art and music can reduce blood pressure, boost immune system function, and alleviate pain. [1]
Improving sleep quality: Listening to music can improve sleep quality. [2]
Improving mental alertness: Listening to music can improve mental alertness. [2]
Improving memory: Listening to music can improve memory. [2]
Improving exercise performance: Art can improve exercise performance. [3]
Speeding healthy recovery: Art can speed healthy recovery. [3]
Developing innovative talents: Art and music can help children develop innovative talents. [4]
Art and music can be used for healing and therapy, and can be prescribed as a treatment to improve health. [5, 6]
Artistic expression is a seed planted within all of us, and the best time to cultivate that seed is when imagination shines the brightest.
Whether it’s playing pretend or coloring a picture, children show us that art is deeply intertwined with who we are as a species. That’s why children’s art charities are dedicated to promoting that internal creativity and teaching them about how vibrant the world can be.
There are many different kinds of children’s art charities throughout the United States. See our full list of children’s art charities at the bottom of this article.
Turning Dreams into Reality
For some children, artistic expression exists as merely a dream due to lack of supplies.
They take in donations of art and music supplies and distribute them to communities in need. They even prepare home art kits so that creativity can emerge from both home and the classroom.
The Tools for Teaching
Some charities, such as the National Arts Education Association (NAEA), offer tools and lesson plans to help advance art education in schools from pre-k to university. They offer their members both a platform to learn about visual arts, design and media arts, as well as to exhibit their own artistic pieces. The NAEA Professional Learning Studio also offers webinars and other virtual events that serve to empower art educators across the country.
From Visions to Careers
For teenagers, the idea of turning their art into a career is enticing, but how do they make it happen? TheYoungArts organization serves to help young artists blossom into their craft and invests in their future. This organization holds competitions to seek out the best young artists across the nation. The winners receive both financial awards as well as mentorship opportunities with leaders of their respected fields. YoungArts offers programs designed to advance careers and build up networking opportunities for the next generation of artists.
A Spectrum of Opportunities
Children’s art charities help our youth in so many ways. Some put paintbrushes into the hands of children who would never have had the opportunity before. Some empower educators so that they can reach into the young minds of their students and pull forth that creativity. And some help turn that creativity into a long and fulfilling career. Through these charities and programs, we can rest assured that the youth of today will help shape a more beautiful future.
Children’s Art Charities List
Americans for the Arts– Provides resources for advancing art and art education in the United States.
Arts Connection – Provides art education programs to the public schools in San Bernardino County.
Dreaming Zebra Foundation– A nonprofit that encourages children to embrace creativity and follow their artistic dreams.
Give Kids Art– Give Kids Art provides art programs to ignite creative exploration and self-expression in underserved children living in Los Angeles and beyond.
Healing and Education Through the Arts (HEART)– The Healing and Education through the Arts (HEART) program is an arts-based approach to providing psychosocial support for children, youth, and adults around the world.
International Children’s Art Foundation (ICAF)– ICAF has served American children as their national arts organization and the world’s children as their global arts organization since 1997. ICAF inspires students to boldly step beyond the boundaries set before them to improve the world.
Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership (PAEP) – Promotes life-long learning in and through the arts for Pre-K to grade 12 students, seniors, and special populations in schools and community sites throughout southeastern Pennsylvania.
Sunflower Creative Arts – The mission of Sunflower Creative Arts is to empower Florida children and families to be confident, creative and compassionate through Play, Nature and the Arts.
YoungArts– An organization that nurtures and promotes young artists across the country.
The relationship between art and psychology is a topic that has been researched for thousands of years dating back to Plato and Aristotle.
Although Plato may have considered art to be nothing more than an act of imitation, Aristotle saw art as a way to represent the internal significance of things, not just their outward appearance.
As the years went on, this internal significance began to branch out, now taking into consideration the expression of the artist’s emotions. And today, art continues to change and evolve, becoming a new form of communication.
A way to link minds together when words fail and help us perceive both ourselves and the world around us.
Artistic Sensations
So, it’s safe to say that art does have an impact on our minds, but what exactly does that mean?
The answer to that lies within the science of neuroaesthetics: how our brains respond to aesthetic and artistic experiences.
In short, there is a physical neurochemical exchange happening within us whenever we view or create art.
Those chemicals blossom into the pleasure senses of our brains creating the same sense of satisfaction you would get after a good meal or a night spent with your lover. Definitely a sensation you would want to experience again and again.
The Aesthetic Components
But experiencing art does not just give us that warm, good feeling.
There are three neural systems that activate upon viewing art known as the aesthetic triad. The components of this triad include sensory-motor, knowledge meaning and emotional valuation.
The sensory-motor aspect is our natural reaction to objects we recognize and how they’re used.
For example, a painting of an apple tree would remind us of the sensory experience of plucking an apple from a tree to eat. Of course, we’re not going to reach out and try to eat a painting but the sensory information is projected in our minds.
Knowledge meaning establishes the understanding that our experience depends on the context and content present within the experience.
Take the Mona Lisa, for instance. At its base form, it’s a portrait of a beautiful woman. But with one’s knowledge of facial expressions, the painting takes on a quality unique to the person who’s viewing it. Is that a sad kind of smile that she has? Do her eyes seem to be mocking you as you look into them?
People can view the same piece of artwork and have vastly different perceptions of it, due to their own personal knowledge and experiences.
Lastly, there is the component of emotional valuation.
This component contains our emotional response to an art piece whether that be anger, fear, elation, or awe.
Awe is certainly a response to gazing upon the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. This cathedral took hundreds of years to build and is considered a world heritage site for obvious reasons. Every surface of the building is covered in carvings of biblical figures and ornate designs. The inside is adorned with high ceilings and peppered with stain glass art detailing the story of Jesus Christ. This place was meant to make you feel small in the sheer magnificence of the Lord and it succeeds.
With this emotion valuation, sensory-motor and knowledge meaning combined, it highlights just how complex our response to art is. The relationship between art and psychology is an intricately woven web of thoughts, feelings and notions.
Benefits Through Creation
We know the benefits of viewing art, but what about making it?
The creation of art also improves our cognitive functions such as problem solving and innovation.
What lines do I have to make with this pencil in order to form a face? How do I show dimensions on a flat surface?
Look at the art of animation, for instance.
How do I make these pictures appear to show movement? How do I make a cartoon that appeals to both children and their parents?
All of these questions keep our minds in motion and lead us on to newly formed pathways of innovation.
In that respect, art is a way to keep our brains in top shape.
The Art of Catharsis
With humanity being a race that is so deeply ingrained with our emotions, it stands to reason that we would greatly benefit from activities that help regulate those emotions.
Aristotle once called this, catharsis.
Through catharsis we can purge ourselves of our negative thoughts and empower our positive thoughts by expressing them.
Expressing grief is just as important as expressing joy and the arts are a way to express both and more.
A painting of a mother weeping. A sculpture of a loyal dog. A poem about true love. A dance choreographed to celebrate the weather. A play made to tell the story of a historical figure.
All of the arts bring out all of our humanity.
And all of the arts show how intimate the relationship between art and psychology truly is.
A World Without Art
So, what would we be without art?Picture yourself waking up to start your day.
You dress yourself in the same clothes as everyone else. Your outfit only serves to cover you, nothing more.
You eat a breakfast that only tends to your nutritional needs instead of flavor, inside a home that only has what you need to function, no decor.
You drive to work in silence for there is no music on the radio. The job market has been reduced to only the practical and analytical professions: growing food, selling that food, providing healthcare, manufacturing household appliances and money management.
You talk to your coworkers like robots since there’s no need for overly flowery language.
Even your forms of entertainment have also been severely limited. No movies or shows. No plays or dances.
Your children’s toys would be muted, since there’s no reason for anything that promotes creativity. No crayons. No playdoh. No dress up dolls.
It’s crazy to see just how deeply intwined art is in our daily lives. In its absence, art leaves us with nothing but a quiet, stifled existence that fails in its attempts to be human.
A Future We Can Express
The relationship between art and psychology is seen as two perfectly placed pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
We are never truly complete without it.
It can be as deep and complex as we want it to be. Some people consider making art a pathway into the transcendence.
A way to link together mind, body and soul.
And some people just think, “Hey, that painting would look nice in my living room.” Both are equally valid responses to art.
It should give us a sense of wonder and pride that we have managed to make something that is both ethereal and commonplace within our society.
As we continue to grow and evolve as a species, so too will our artistic capabilities. It will be a joy to see how far our minds can take us.
Great philosophers often ask the question “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” Which quite often leads to an unending spiral of hypotheses with no real answers.
So it got me thinking about artists and where their hidden ‘talents’ come from.
Is artistic ability genetic? Or is it more of a response to something else.
Roughly ten years ago, it was estimated that about 17% of people around the world actively exercised ‘creation’ in their daily lives. This figure had been comprised from working citizens categorized as ‘artists’ as the primary occupation(1), mixed with sources such as university student registries, and polls that ask the question “Do you identify as an artist?”(2)
Today, that figure, I believe, is still around the 20% mark, of worldwide citizens.
Just to make sure we are clear, that means 1 out of every 5 people ‘gravitate’ towards ‘art’ – music, painting, creation.
Many of these people will wonder where these talents come from – the classic ‘nature versus nurture’ debate.
Artists may spend years of family tree tracing to draw a definitive correlation to genetics being the sole reason for their talents but come up empty.
While yes, some sources will argue you that genetics play a heavy role – but read carefully. Many of those sources will site ‘structural cell changes’ and ‘mental disorders’ as a reason for ‘artistic genius’. However, it seems the scientific and medical communities are also still debating ‘nature vs nurture’ in those respective areas as well.
HOWEVER, it is becoming widely accepted that there is a direct correlation between art and trauma, and creation as a traumatic response.
People around the world are coming forward with the admission that ‘art as successfully helped them heal’. (4)
In 2025, the amount of Google Search Queries for ‘art therapy’ is on the rise again. ‘Art Therapy’ rose to new heights within the United States just after the 911 Tragedy – based on the ‘need for healing’.(5)
Current statistical data reveals that art does scientifically heal mental anguish.
With that said, that just begs to ask the question:
“Do artists create art innately to heal themselves in the first place?”
Pablo Picasso
Conclusion
We know art heals.
We know people fill their lives with art and music for feelings of comfort to themselves individually.
