Original, fresh, new, innovative, groundbreaking. Fuck ’em. Find your myths. Find your idols, symbols, guardians, guides, angels, totems, whatever you want to call them. Call them cliches if you want. Find YOUR cliches, and love them, squeeze them and hold them tight. What reoccurs in your dreams? Moments of synchronicity? What image do find yourself spontaneously drawing, even if you […]
How to deeply explore your inner world
Healing a pesky sub-personality
Sisters, let me tell ya, it has been QUITE the week here. I love summer break, don’t get me wrong. But being home all the time forces me to deal with all the stuff I escaped by going to work. The grand experiment this week is to see what effect creativity has on my ability to deal. And what […]
The art version of kale and spinach
Sometimes color makes me sick. It makes my throat tighten in the same why it tightens when I think about Cinnabon. Sickly, overstimulated, fake, cheap even. When this happens, it is hard to make art. My friend’s 8 year old daughter had the solution. “Sometimes I just pick one color, just one colored pencil and I draw a peace […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]