Mickalene Thomas Quotes

I don't have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapist is in my paint brushes.

I've been in therapy since I was five, but music goes way, way, way, way, way beyond therapy.

I like to paint and spend a lot of time doing art. For me, it's about hearing yourself and putting it out there as art. It's like a therapy thing.

I'm pretty terrible at writing, so the way I kind of therapeutically get through things is by drawing.

It's still an escape for me, painting, so it also takes me elsewhere. I don't think I would do it otherwise.

People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.

My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films.

I unfortunately had a lot of medical procedures throughout my life, so I decided to paint all of my surgeries as a way to heal and as a way to grow.

Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.

Part of my therapy is to write.

My music started as a way to break through weaknesses - like anxiety, which was completely taking over my whole life, where I could barely function.

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

Therapy is therapy. Writing is for writing.

I found that if I don't paint for around a week, I get practically suicidal. It took a long time to figure out why I had these mood swings, and I finally figured out it's because I haven't painted.

If it weren't for painting, I wouldn't live; I couldn't bear the extra strain of things.

I find a therapy in playing music, in many different ways.

If I didn't have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

I write music, really, to make myself feel better.

Something impacts me emotionally, art is a kind of outlet, and I figure it's the same for a lot of artists. The way my mind deals with things is cinematic.

My imagination was a great place to escape from all the anxiety and disapproval of my life... I had to live in my head... art was a way of making myself feel better.

When things become peculiar, frustrating and strange, I think it's a good time to start painting.

Art is for healing ourselves, and everybody needs their own personal art to heal up their problems.

I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality... to protect myself.

I write first for myself as a therapeutic process, to get stuff out and to deal with it.

If I don't get in the studio, I don't have no therapy.