Heydee-hoo, art fans.

I spent the first part of the day with a large group of artists who were not at all happy (and not at all afraid to tell anyone about this). This was not a new experience for me–being around unhappy artists, I mean; after all, I’m an art critic in my after school hours, so I’ve dealt with my share of unhappy artists. Still, I have to admit I’ve never seen quite the amount of concentrated artistic disgruntlement in one place before.

Of course, there’s not much that I, nor just about anyone else, can really do to relieve these artists’ collective dismay. And as artist after artist took this opportunity to stand at the mic and give vent to years (maybe decades) of pent up frustration, I found myself wondering about the nature of happiness: What brings it about in people? Why is it so elusive to grab onto? What are some sorts of people (as opposed to others) so much more prone to go without it?

As it happens, author (and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bill Clinton) Bill Ivey asked similar questions about happiness in a (not really very happy) book I just finished this past week, Arts Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights. According to his summation of various studies about what makes people happy, there’s an “underlying agreement about what it takes to increase happiness once the basic material needs of society have been satisfied.” This includes factors most people would think are obvious: friendships and families, a sense of accomplishment, security in work. But this also includes something that is less tangible and more difficult to define, variously described (by commentators like Nobel Laureate Robert Fogel) as a “balanced inner life,” “personal growth” (as opposed to consumerism), “a sense of purpose,” or an “education of the spirit.”

Ivey argues that “art unquestionably gives us a way to pursue self-realization without forcing us to deny the materialist and competitive drives that pass for human nature in the West… Art making is spiritual, long-lasting, and (compared to psychotherapy and drug rehab) relatively inexpensive; it contains and even expands many parameters of a well-lived life that have to date mostly been attributed to work, religion, family, and community. In addition, an engagement with art permits us to indulge our drive toward success and self-realization without forcing us to buy into the nastiness of America’s unhappy rat race. It is the yin of individual achievement that complements the yang of heritage, making our expressive life whole. Thus completed, a rounded expressive life can be a reservoir holding the two overarching ingredients of happiness–adventure and security.”

Of course, all you friends of AHH! will recognize that I’ve been arguing such effects for art (of course in much less eloquent terms) for quite some time. The secret to happiness is simple: Art will make you happy. Also, Art Happy Hour! will make you happiest of all!

(And with that I say: Stay tuned for an announcement in the next few days about Art Happy Hour!4: The late summer edition.)