What if you don’t like your picture (in art or in life)?

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You could ditch it, rip it up, scribble over it…you could adapt adapt adapt.

What if there’s a gulf between the astoundingly beautiful vision in your head and the muck that’s appearing on the canvas? This is The Gap.    

Creativity lives in The Gap.

If you keep going, you have two fundamental choices.

  1. Keep trying to make your picture (or life) resemble the perfection of your imaginings. This likely leads to a wrestling match with your Inner Critic, your art-esteem, your materials, your existing picture (or life).

    and/or you could…

  2. Adapt adapt adapt. Follow your brush or gesture or what’s already appeared. Surrender to the Art of Emergence. Trust the process and the flow of your picture (or life). This option is far easier said than done. It goes against the grain of all we’re taught in our outcome-driven, get-it-right-or-die dominant culture.

Neither of these choices is right or wrong. Much art-making (and life) is a dance between Continue reading →

Listen for Life’s Artbeat

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Last week at Sydney Writers Festival, I fell under the spell of the graceful being that is Ben Okri.

He said

Writing requires listening – very deep listening – to the world, to other people, to oneself.

I agree.

An artist pays attention, gives attention, tunes in to the tree roots level of the material that calls. The fine hairs that live on your sensitive artist antennae waggle around on your head, picking up creativity fodder.

This listening is a quality of presence. We attend, consciously and unconsciously. It’s as much about receiving as it is about doing; about input as well as output. The in-breath as well as the out-breath.

Can you allow yourself a pause – for ten seconds – for two minutes?

In order to l-i-s-t-e-n?

Listening (though someone said I should call it Glistening. Because of the sparkly bits)

Listening
(though someone said I should call it Glistening. Because of the sparkly bits)

How to Access Your (Already Abundant) Creativity

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A Flower Power Point Presentation

to be viewed one blossom at a time

(adapted from the creativity guide I wrote for the 2015 Divine Feminine Conference)

Sacre Fleur

Sacre Fleur

Flower Power Point Number One

You are Already Creative

You might have heard this before. You might not feel creative. You might think your friend, your sister, your child is creative but you are not. The truth is, we all are creative. Who says

Continue reading →

The Creative Love Exchange

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What is it? It’s when you stand in the flow of giving and receiving, feeling creatively alive. And it’s win-win-win.

You do something you love

You share it with others

They benefit – sometimes way beyond your reckoning

You receive the glow

You do more of what you love

One Leaf is Many Leaves

One Leaf is Many Leaves

I was sorrowful. It was the week of the Anzac centenary, destructive storms around Sydney, the execution of two of the Bali Nine and… the Nepal earthquake. Working as an art therapist in aged care, I see more Nepalese people than I ever did before in my sheltered Sydney world. They offer intimate personal care to the frail elderly here, while their families are suffering severely back home in the hills. A tough call.

I gave myself creative space – art-making time. I reached for the grey, allowing paint and tears to flow. I gave myself permission to not know, to not know how these pictures would turn out or IF they would turn into anything in particular.

grey wash of paint and tears

Painting, weeping, following the brush of my heart …. eventually, I noticed shapes and forms emerging.

A guitar appeared in one picture. Wraith-like figures appeared in another.

a wraith there

The paintings became more defined, more present. Crying stopped and thinking began. What if I were to bring gold and white decorations to the images? What if I could put them for sale on Facebook and donate the full proceeds to earthquake survivors?

But what if the paintings are no good? I don’t usually show my raw work so soon after creating it. What if no-one likes this idea? What if it’s crass to mix money and Facebook friends? Continue reading →

Top Two Tried-and-true Creativity Guidelines

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Gentle

Yes – I believe there are two Creativity Guidelines at the heart and core of the matter. 

I’ve been suggesting them in Art and Soul groups for about twenty years. Every now and then I look to the sky thoughtfully, pondering their validity. Do they still resonate? Do they help? I find they stand the test of (such thorough, scientific) scrutiny.

And here they are….drumroll….

  1. Breathe

  2. Be kind to yourself

That’s it. The good news is that breathing and being kind to yourself are simple. The not-so-good news is that they are difficult. Believe me. Like a lot of Art and Soul suggestions, these pointers arise from my own bitter, breathless, breathstopping, breathfull, self-savage, self-snippety, self-compassionate experience.

Try them. While writing, arting, gardening, mosaic-ing, singing, creatively relating, see if you can become conscious of your breath. For one split second. Continue reading →

Blogbirth – Three Baby Elephants or Ten Million Microbes

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It’s been a long pregnancy.

In the time it takes for maybe three baby elephants, five whales or ten million microbes to be born, this blog has been gestating.

Why so long?

Desire and fear in equal measure. Let’s have a quick lesson in the Physics of Creativity According to Sally Swain.

Often as we come closer to fulfilling a burning dream, to honouring our creative yearnings, to saying YES to our authentic, alive, tingling selves, there’s a backlash. The equal weight of fear kicks in. It can be a tidal wave of doubt demons or the quiet ooze of avoidance and excuses. E might equal mc squared; I wouldn’t really know. But I do know that over twenty years’ experience of working and playing with my own creative process and that of others reveals that the Great Stultification can equal the surge of Creative Life Force. Continue reading →