Rejuvenating Love in Art🎨💗

by poetry editor, Amanda Conover

The month of love brings lots to celebrate–from romance to friendships to self-love. Did you know that Valentine’s Day stems from a Pagan fertility festival and originally had nothing to do with romance? Some scholars believe the connection of the evolved holiday to romantic relationships first happened because of a poem called “The Parlement of Foules” written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1380. 

​

While we don’t know for sure the origins of the connection between Valentine’s Day and love, thinking about the evolution of the holiday reminds us that our art needs to consistently evolve too. And while February is a wonderful time to center love in our lives and creative works, the way we create stories, poems, dance pieces, music, and art related to love might need some extra thought to avoid falling into cliches and overused ideas. ​​

​

So, how can we as creatives avoid overdone tropes, associations, and language regarding love? One good practice is to think differently about the emotion. A recent prompt in Poets & Writers asks writers to “Think about a relationship in your life that resists easy categorization and write a love poem that attempts to capture this complexity.” I believe this can be expanded into all art forms, however. What specific relationships do you have or know of that embody love in a fresh or unique way? How can you incorporate that into your art form while challenging some of the more frequent associations of love? 

​

Maybe that means creating a dance piece that portrays the contradictions of love within a parental relationship, a painting that depicts limerence, a song about an online-only friendship, or a short story about the complexity of self-love. Whatever it means to you, know that your specific experiences and associations are important in rejuvenating the discourse and shaping the month of love to be inclusive of all forms of love.​

​

Here are some creative examples that do this well:​​​​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​​​

​