I'm relatively new to the Monome outside of seeing a few demos in the
past.  I'm aware of its musical flexibility, but has anyone tried using
it with any art based programs.  I'm a graduate art therapy student and
am very intrigued with the idea of using this to interface with an art
program.  any advice, recommendations, or information would be greatly
appreciated. thanks.

what do you mean by an art based program? visual arts? does jitter 
count? what about processing? photoshop? actionscript?

it's hard to tell what you're asking about. i've thought a few times 
about hacking up some software that will let the 40h control the tool 
pallate in photoshop, but i haven't really looked into it.

here's a start:

http://vimeo.com/132759

yeah i saw that video but i'm not entirely sure how he did it exactly.

i should have been more specific. i meant something along the lines of 
how he used flash in the video above.  i guess i'm looking for a way to 
spontaneously create images, lines, shapes, etc. by using the 40h.

A few people have written 40h apps in Processing. Which if I were 
looking to delve into a monome-controlled graphics on the fly platform, 
and someday I probably will be, that's likely where I'd start.

yes, and of course as others may have said, jitter (if you dont already 
have max/msp, this is a costly solution, but worth it 100% if you are 
into the idea of making custom patches).

not really art, but for video jamming, im sure you can use it to control 
apps like VJamm or MotionDive (via MIDI), and if you are willing to do 
some programming, you can even make a nice 2-way (button plus LEDs) 
patch in chuck, processing, max or whatever else.

>i meant something along the lines of 
>how he used flash in the video above.  i guess i'm looking for a way to 
>spontaneously create images, lines, shapes, etc. by using the 40h.

i'm no computer artist... for example, i've never used flash, but i'm 
95% sure that video was done with processing. i don7t know how much you 
know about it already, so ignore this if it's partonising, but check out 
www.processing.org - as a way to "spontaneously create images, lines, 
shapes, etc" it's ideal. i can also heartily recommend this book: 
http://www.amazon.com/Processing-Creative-Coding-Computational-Foundation/dp/159059617X/
mine arrived from amazon a couple of weeks ago. it's excellent.