“You shouldn’t be making art like that!” This was said to me once. It stunned me. At the time, I had just started making art again after a long dry spell. The person who said it to me was an artist who did watercolor still lifes. She let me and my young son come to her studio. My son would […]
Art and Shame
Why your creativity should be part of your self care
Burn out. Those of us that work intensely with people, such as teachers, parents, therapists, and social workers, are often under appreciated. The work we do is on the front lines of the evolution of society: educating, socializing, peaceful communication, intervention. It is complex work, often thankless. It is work that requires a lot of energy, and if we don’t […]
The transformative power of the creative act
I’m a self help junkie. My shelves are filled with books about communication, leadership, parenting, creativity, teaching, and spirituality. I’ve read most of all of them, and some of them really impacted me. But as we all know, change is hard. Reading, and the expansion of consciousness that comes with it, can be temporary. Sometimes so temporary that as soon as you close […]
The missing piece of your creativity
Self consciousness is my greatest creativity killer. Sometimes it manifests as people pleasing art making. I fall back onto easy-to-love color combinations and compositions that I know will get me compliments. It’s okay to do this sometimes. Its a pleasant way to connect with others, and the sheer joy of playing with color, shape and line is worth it. But […]
Inner wisdom from collage
Sunday was grim and stormy here in the mountains. A perfect day for art making with good friends. I lead them in a collage project that helps us draw from our own intuition and inner wisdom, an approach I learned from expressive arts therapist Jane Goldberg. On the back of three pages, you write a question that you need guidance on. One […]
Do we discover our true identity? Or create it?
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. – Michelangelo You are not a statue. It used to be that when I thought about self discovery, I imagined (or hoped) there was this fabulous person, some sort of original me, that was obscured by insecurity, negative life experiences, […]
Is it safe to be real when you are in the public eye?
I am participating in the itty bitty adventure club and my adventure this week was to confront my twitter fears. Okay, I know that seems…a bit tame, but it is ITTY BITTY! Okay?! I’m scared of twitter. It seems fast. And you have to be concise. And some people twitter A LOT. But I am not even at the actual tweet stage. My […]
The sacred adventure of intuitive painting
Author, painter and activist Aviva Gold describes her approach to painting as “painting from the source.” She explains how the “source” goes by many different names depending on viewpoint and culture and she likes to think of the source as a combination of all of them: Great Spirit, the divine, Prana, the unconscious, psyche, consciousness, soul, God, Goddess. Michele Cassou […]
Why you should make art with other people
When I was in college, I got used to making art around other people. I was lucky to be in an environment that was not competitive, so if someone liked your art, they told you so. We gave each other feedback, as well as getting feedback from our professors, all the time. When I was out of school on my […]
Burning out and recommiting
Falling down… One area I am particularly interested in researching is how the arts can help people deal with burn out. I have a personal interest in this because I frequently feel totally burned out. After weeks of feeling good, somewhat on top of things, the bottom suddenly fell away and I was devoid of energy, irritable, and uninterested in […]