Why do you enjoy art?

Artwork: What Art form do you enjoy the most often? How and why does it empower or transform you?

• Besides the classic answer: "All of them" : If you had to choose the few  you engage most often: either music, novels, film, 3D art, collaborative, photography or dance? How  and why does it effect and change you?

• Answer:

  I mostly do the following: painting & drawing graphic design (esp. web design) writing (blog & educational content) I love painting & drawing because it allows me to express my emotions in a safe manner. I described some of my thoughts about this process in my blog posts http://neladunato.com/blog/why-are-my-artworks-so-dark-and-morbid/ and http://neladunato.com/blog/who-are-you-really-creating-your-art-for/ - they're both very long so I can't exactly sum them up in a few words here, but in short: art has helped me come to terms with some difficult emotions I was living through as a result of being very sensitive. Learning web and graphic design helped me to extend my reach beyond people I knew personally, and I used my website to meet new people from across the world. Of course one might say forums and social networks help you do that, but I find personal websites a far more effective way to express yourself online, and to me my website has been a tool for both making friends and making money. In fact, a few years after getting into web design I started making money and I've been a professional designer for almost a decade. Through this I proved to both myself any my family that I can make a living doing what I enjoy, and that learning things on my own can be just as effective as studying in college. Writing forces me to arrange my thoughts in a concise manner and realize what I know and what I don't know. Through writing for other people, I also learn myself, and through figuring out ideas on what to write that would improve someone else's life, I get ideas on how I can improve my own life. For example one of my recent posts http://neladunato.com/blog/how-to-overcome-resistance/ was an idea that just landed in my brain while I was working on my book, and now I can see how I can use that in my own life. I shared this tip just a few days after I first thought of it. I think that when I'm focused on writing and sharing knowledge, I get a lot more ideas and I write them all down so I don't forget them. When I'm just thinking, thoughts come and go and I barely remember what I thought about. When I'm writing, it sticks with me.