Before she died last month at age 70, the respected Pomo basket weaver and activist Luwana Quitiquit was asked by a researcher for her personal definition of wellness.
“Storytelling is wellness,” she said. “And the reason it is wellness for my family is because it puts my kids back in touch with my grandmother, of people they never get to see. It inspires them to carry on their culture. That’s wellness.”
The link between traditional artistic practices and mental and physical health is explored in “Weaving Traditional Arts Into the Fabric of Community Health,” a study [PDF] by the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities. The report was commissioned by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, a nonprofit in Fresno that provides support for folk and traditional artists, the majority of whom are immigrants and Native Americans. In these often-overlooked minority communities, the arts tend to be passed down from one generation to another as collective wisdom, rather than as a personal statement.
“Part of what makes a healthy community is having a vibrant cultural life,” said Amy Kitchener, executive director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. “Native Americans have always made a strong connection between cultural practices and health. Unlike the western idea of art in a gallery, for traditional artists, it is embedded in everyday life, in ceremonies and family rites of passage. But objectively evaluating the impact of the arts on health is challenging.”
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