painting

On being a recovering creative

ImageI had lost my artistic mojo.  After a burst of creativity, sitting down to paint had been almost painful.  Nothing flowed.  I was just grasping for ideas that would fade before the paint reached the canvas.  Occasionally I made myself complete a painting but eventually I didn’t even bother squeezing the paint on the palette, since I would lose interest and waste the paint.  But I had my yoga, my family life, things to do.  I was as empty as these dried seed pods.  (I completed this painting during this time — it took me, no kidding, a YEAR.  Every time I look at this painting, I’m amazed at how tortured it was for me.)

On the advice of some very wise people at Tranquil Space, I picked up Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, (Penguin/Putnam, 1992) and I am now recovering the joy and spontaneity that my creative life had been until I got in the way of myself.

Practicing art and practicing yoga demand that you turn yourself off — get yourself out of your own way.  My art had become all about ME.  What did I think?  What did I want to say in this painting?  What did I think was interesting?  It’s just like how a pose becomes all the more difficult when I find myself thinking about what I look like or how much better I am at this pose now than I was in the past. The lesson is just to do art, not think art.  Just practice.  Be like a transistor radio.

So I get up and do art.  I let the ideas flow from somewhere else.  I just transcribe them. Thanks to friends at the studio and Julia Cameron, I am a recovering creative.

Yes, Cricket, you can be lost AND found

The Garden Gate

I painted these two pictures — the one on the banner and the one in this post — during a time in my life when I was terribly lost.  So I found myself in front of a canvas.  Then I found myself on the yoga mat.  Eventually, I found myself engaging in life in a whole new and joyful way, despite the fact that I was hopelessly lost then and that there will be other lost times ahead of me.

There should be a map for these times in life that says “I don’t know.  Try a left?  Then perhaps a U-turn?”  That’s what I hope my site is for you:

A map with no discernible direction.

I’m tired of strategic plans and goal setting.  I just want to be.  To let things happen.  To do some yoga and create some art. To go for a journey.  So join me.

This is a good reading to start with, from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki (Tuttle Publishing, 1985).  (Shout out to Rebecca Bell Curlin for the great grad gift!)

Zen Dialogue

Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves.  Two Zen temples each had a child protegé.  One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way.  

Where are you going?” asked the one.

“I am going wherever my feet go,” the other responded.

This reply puzzled the first child who went to his teacher for help. “Tomorrow morning,” the teacher told him, “when you meet that little fellow, ask him the same question.  He will give you the same answer, and then you ask him: ‘Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?’ That will fix him.”

The children met again the following morning.

“Where are you going?” asked the first child.

“I am going wherever the wind blows,” answered the other.

This again nonplussed the youngster, who took his defeat to his teacher.

“Ask him where he is going if there is no wind,” suggested the teacher.

The next day, the children met for a third time.

“Where are you going?” asked the first child.

“I am going to the market to buy vegetables,” the other replied.