Creativity is engagement!

I have found as I developed a disciplined creativity that everything in the day was in vivid color from peeling carrots to watching the clouds float by. It is in the engagement of noticing how you feel, what is going on and what it means to you that your senses heighten. Not just what you see....but noticing that everything in your day makes a noise, has a texture to the touch, a taste to the tongue and a fragrance to your sense of smell. How does water sound and taste and smell as it runs over your body in the shower? One sense will evoke a memory or a dream, while another will engage a desire, an emotion or an image. What does a trip to the garden to pick a bouquet elicit? Everything that is noticed and appreciated will give you subject matter. It is like life is an exhibitionist waiting for your attention. Like many others I love the line from the movie Avatar, "I see you." And might I add....every day is seen, heard, tasted, touched as we go by in our creative zone.

Our true nature is creative!

Our true nature is creative. Using our creativity is therapeutic, but it is not because we need to be fixed...it is because we need to be expressive. Our inner world is a complex, exquisite and powerful play of colors, lights, and shadows, a cathedral of consciousness as glorious as the natural world itself. Expressing your inner wealth is just gathering up what the Great Creator has already put within easy reach of all of us. ALL of us contain a divine, expressive spark, a creative light that guides our pathway. We are shiny, not tarnished; large not small; beautiful, not damaged. Allow your grace, power and dignity to be expressed.

Creativity needs to flow!

Trust the flow of your creativity....it is the raw material....not the finished product. The flow turned loose and rambling without interruption may be filled with emotion or memories or dreams......perhaps a stream of consiousness or free association. You need to quiet your mind without asking questions, becoming critical or honing the technique. For me color is always an inspiration....so that is a starting point often.....today I feel red, or indigo or Sap green and violet! If this seems mindles, it is! You quiet the mind, let the playful soul come out and just witness what happens with a smile....surprises happen. There will be time for analytical thinking later. But, for this process you are letting the creative flow generate its material. Your intuition and vision and deeper wisdom are your playmates. This is where the creative magic is.

Creativity involves exposure!

Exposure is a part of the creative person's life....sharing his/her gifts opens up the door for comments and opinions, criticism, constructive and destructive. In the early stages this can be frightening, but in the final stages of commitment to your creative work, it is just part of the deal. What holds many artists back is being that naked.....especially if you paint, write, dance or photograph from the soul. That nakedness feels like a loss of control. People see you as you and we may be afraid to be vulnerable with our real selves. Learning to accept yourself and the process of evolving your personal statement as an artist is freeing. Your work is personal and distinctive and it is important to follow your own inner voice in expressing that uniqueness. Other people's opinions, tastes and preferences are really none of our business. Find the support you need and the ones that encourage your growth the most. Be a part of the community that interacts with your creative self in a positive way.

Creativity works with your light, but also your shadows.

When you are dealing with something as soulful as your creativity, it is healthy to respect its inherent power.....for it is the power that stirs up life. Your beliefs reside there and so do your prejudices, your vision lies their as well as your fears. It is helpful to remember that contrast is a great teacher and without the shadow the light is not as vivid. The truth is that light and shadow are side by side and define our composition. It is important to learn how each element effects us and how each one helps us grow. You will always meet your shadow if light begins to illuminate your journey to creativity. You are at the edges of experience and understanding as a creative person and that takes enormous energy. I finally understood the creative surges would be followed by a crash period where I needed to recover. The healthy balance was accepting both will equal tolerance and joy. The flow of intense creative time and space always has a touch of let down when a piece is finished. That's a signal that it's time to restore and re-create by resting and eating well. You may discover that you become super sensitive....uses all of your senses to a heightened degree. The longer you work at your creative gifts the more sensitive you become....sensitivity is a requirement for creative work....don't toughen up!

Your desires will get you in touch with your creativity!

Creativity bursts into bloom when you create out of your desires. Passion ignites your words, your images, your thoughts as you buzz with energy and vivid detail. When you don't block them, but let them flow they go beyond our physical realm into visions that spiritually connect us to our creativity. Let your desires flow onto the canvas, the page, the sculpture, the camera, the dance floor. Your power lies in your God-given desires that ignite your creativity. Fears are the flip side of desire and are often connected to our deepest desires. What if we lose what we desire the most.....or we don't succeed after much effort to attain our desires. The worst thing about fears is that they slam doors all over the place. They slam doors between you and your imagination, between you and others and finally they totally shut out your desires. My suggestion is that when fears come up, explore them through your art....your creativity might be the safest place in which to face your fears. Let your fears work for you....rather than you working for your fears. It is powerful to let this emotion be expressed and get it under control.

There is no creative emergency!

When I realized there are no creative emergencies and I didn't have to struggle with what to paint or how to paint it, the pressure was off.....I could play. Playfulness is the key for me......detaching from the outcome of the creative process....it's just paint and paper or canvas. So what if your experiment isn't something to hang on the wall. It is a valuable experience to enjoy. Lighten up! This insight is inseparable from actualizing a new idea or vision and it drew me to new things and pushing myself to things I wasn't quite sure I could do. If we stick with only those things we know and already are successful at, we don't grow creatively. The process is the magnificent place for joy and gratification.....it is where perspective is dancing to be born!

Creating In Community!

Although the process of creating is often done alone, there is nothing quite as inspirational as someone saying, "I love your work". Art is a community effort......the creator and the observer that takes it in as his/her own. We are meant to share and that kind of group energy that flows back and forth from one artist to another, from one piece of work to another is a communion of beauty. The individuality of a creator is not snuffed out in a mature, interdependent relationship. Rather it is safeguarded there.....and the key word is mature. It takes two people to do this....walking separate paths on the same journey together. The question is are you willing to find the balance of the solitude it takes to create your art and the connectedness it takes to share it? There is sacredness in both....and the face of a friend that becomes your ardent supporter will be a holy relationship.

Creativity teaches you to pay attention!

The creative process teaches you to fully engage your senses....to pay attention. The details of life suddenly are noticed...the way the light strikes your morning cup of coffee, the way the curve of an orange peel drops off the knife, or the way the sunlight streaks across the top of the hill for just a few seconds. Artists talk about losing track of time or getting in the zone and it is nothing more than becoming fully engaged in noticing the details. The senses, mind and emotions are completely occupied with the task at hand. The regular practice of creating leads you to a joyous engagement in life and opens up extraordinary scenes that you may have never noticed before. Your creative work will bring you closer and in more frequent contact with those parts of your spirit that you may not have paid a great deal of attention....dreams, memories, hunches, intuitions and your imagination. And as you follow them you will find the miracle of knowing that the Universe is bigger and deeper than your previous perception....that God has many ways of speaking to your soul that you simply were not hearing before.

Getting in the creative zone.

As an artist, there are times when I am just in the creative zone....it is like a tide that washes over me. But most of the time, it was because I had visited an art gallery, read a great book, put on moving music or went for a walk in the woods. Getting into the creative zone involves diving into your craft....letting everything else take second place....letting the fringes of life take a back seat. You must learn what inspires you.....and you also must learn what puts a serious cramp in your creative flow. Many times what has stopped me are old messages.....long ago instructions, "Put that away and get your work done." "The work" was never done! Well, when art became my work I am getting it done. I have a theory about a garden hose.....creativity is always there, connected to the Source, waiting to quench your thirst to use your gifts. However it is up to us to turn on the faucet and make sure the kinks are out of the hose. You cannot control the process, but you can master the practices that help you turn on the faucet!

Creativity has no limits!

There is a limited amount of matter in the Universe....always changing form, but never multiplying or disappearing perhaps. No such limitation applies to the creation of works of art so we are not obliged to harness our imagination. Components of the imagination increase by a continuous and irreversible process....ever exploring and expanding and rearranging what went before. The imagination defies logical intelligence and awaits with deep humility, the artist's brush, the writer's pen, the sculpture's clay, the photographer's camera, the dancer's music. It is on the level of our imagination that we formulate our initial response to the divine images and experiences of life....artists depend on it to translate the journey.

The creative life is purposeful and joyful!

Practiced creativity is engaging in purposeful activity. Developing those practices can seem like the dreaded word "discipline". For a free-spirited artist let's use the word purposeful instead. We have the freedom to design rituals, habits and practices that engage us fully in the creative process and what triggers, what I call, "getting in the zone" is different for every one. Often for me it is music and nature! The creative life is not only purposeful, but joyful and one goes hand in hand with the other. Often the process starts with the ritual practices that get you started and then the joy follows. My experience has underscored not waiting until the spirit moves to begin. Our joy and our gifts are inherently linked, and it is our great privilege to discover both.

Saying yes to your creativity!

Saying yes to your gifts is a huge thing to do....and it took me a long time to get there. The yes is to the process, not the outcome of any one's particular expectation. The important thing is that magical word "commitment". Making a commitment to your unique God-given gifts just means you are willing to see where that commitment takes you. We are called to a life, a work, a dream and to our gifts....and the calling is much bigger than we are. Especially when we first say yes....there is unlimited potential we do not know about. Within us is a great core of promise and it is our job to unleash it with the first "YES!".

Gathering images.

Gathering images seems to be an artist's preoccupation and so I am a cloud watcher since time began. I have been gathering them all of my life, storing them away and sometimes forgetting them.....sometimes keeping them a secret for the fear of disapproval. Somehow painting sent me back to myself with color and shapes and ever changing forms, the catalysts to touch the memories and give me the gifts of opening up to a broader journey. So I am back to cloud watching and hugging trees and listening to the angel whispers on the wind in the pine trees. I am home.

The beauty of creativity!

Perhaps each time I get in touch with my creative energy it also connects me with a spiritual energy. Creativity can reveal the beauty and wonder that you see or envision.....recreating and co-creating what God has already put in place. Your brush, pen, pencil, sculpting tools, potter's wheel are the tools that you use to help others see things for the very first time. Our creativity rebirths the world in all of its detail again and again. As artists we see the world in new ways, renaming, reframing the grace, wisdom and wonder that has been present all along.

Light is the expression of the artist.

Let There Be Light

Light is the language of painters and photographers....and expression that shapes form and subject matter. How the light plays on a mountain, a tree, animal or human form is what you look for. There are no lines.....only light shapes.