Use both your creative extaverted energy and your introverted quiet editor in the creative process!

I have learned that there are many facets to the creative life and personality. One of me is the right brained, enthusiastic, passionate artist that thinks through things out loud and expresses as I go without stopping the intuitive flow by editing too quickly. Forget about trying to put things in order or stand by with analytical tedious critical attention. No, this side of the creative personality needs to let things flow, words, emotions, feelings, thoughts and paint brush. The intuition and inner vision comes to life in this space.....it is inner wisdom unblocked by the editor or critic. It provides the raw material for the creative process. You cannot put this flow on a schedule or rush it with deadlines. The editor side of the creative process must stand still and quietly, patiently listen and watch. The generative flow does not need a critic until later in the creative process. There will be time to make that shift from the creative flow to conscious crafting and correction. I don't mean that editing and crafting isn't creative....it just comes from a different, more analytical side of the brain. I put space between the two phases of a painting.....putting the work away for awhile and when the passion dies down....make important decisions about making it a better piece. The pause that refreshes!

The seasons are changeable, fitful and sometimes maddening when we are not ready to change with it. But change they do and change we must, to stay in the precious flow of a creative life. As artists we cannot afford to keep dammed-up ideas, sacred images or unshared gifts from flowing gently into expression. Vague dreams and plans come into clarity as we take steps toward them, breaking loose the clogged arteries and cluttered debris of our seasons. The freed channel allows a clean flow when the weeds of self-doubt and the tangled underbrush of our life, relieves the backed up pressure. Creativity is always an intimate dance with change and clarity and the willingness to keep the flow going through the channel.

Creativity in Community.

Finding a healthy community to create within isn't easy. Knowing who we are in the creative process with a firm grip on ego and sensitivities is essential in saying yes to showing and sharing our work. The isolation of our creative process can stunt our growth. When we are barely hanging on to a sense of our creative gifts the last thing we want is to be thrust into a community that may or may not understand or help us develop them. Find a mentor or mentors that may be two steps ahead of you that will listen and observe with respect.
A sense of creative community can energize our imagination, help us develop our skills and increase our awareness of products and marketing methods. As important as it is to find that quiet sweet spot of inner beauty, it is equally important to find the community that is good for you, encourage you and build your confidence. You may not find it where you expected it.....your family or friends or religious organizations.....but find it you will where it actually is, books, galleries, classes and workshops and hanging out with other creative souls. Many times it is in studying and relating to art works when the artist has been long gone. Choose to participate in a creative community that inspires and encourages you.

Sharing your creativity brings up vulnerability.

The sensitivity that is so much a part of our creativity is a double edged sword. It sharpens our awareness to color shape and form and ignites our imagination. The other side of it is being sliced open by critical opinions, approval and judgments. Bringing your creative work into the world is much like exposing your soul and can be terrifying if you have been subjected to creative injuries that often happen early on in our expressive life. As artists, there is a collaborative process with the Great Creator....a spiritual journey to our most sensitive center. Like rejection from a loved one.....our creative hearts get broken and vulnerable. But, like real life, we mend and heal and reach again for our creative dreams and partner up with Divine Design. The books that were lying in drawers, continue page by page, the paintings stuffed in the back of the closet come out to be finished, the music that still plays in our heart is written down. The fire breathing dragons and muttering ghosts that hide under our bed are invited out to dance in the light.

"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open."

Shakti Gawain

Don't downsize your creativity!

No art blooms without an artist blossoming! And like beautiful things that bloom, it begins as a tiny seed, a pinpoint of light, a spark of creativity. We are made by the Great Creator and we are intended to be creative. It is with that tiny inner message that our artistic path begins and changes and grows. The fragile tendrils of creativity expand into sturdy stems that shoot up to the light....growing into a unique destiny. Some of our friends and family may not get this and begin to downsize us with criticism or discount our efforts. We get this at a very tender young age often. My message as a young girl was, "Put that away and get your work done." But as I grew, other negative shrinking meassages came......"Artist's don't make a good living, that's la-la land....get a real job." There is no comfort in believing words that downsize us to fit another's view of us. The size the Great Creator wants to make us is none of our business and certainly no one else's either.

"If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies, and so does a man." Henry David Thoreau

Creativity lies in our authenticity.

From Julia Cameron's book, Walking In This World. "When we surrender to becoming what we are menat to be instead of trying to convince the world of who we think we are, we find our proper creative shoes and can walk in them comfortably. Not surprisingly they sometimes take us far. Moving comfortably and at a less driven pace, we also enjoy the journey, finding pleasure in our companions and our 'view' each step of the way."

If you haven't read Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way or Walking In This World, they are a must for the creative soul.

It matters not which way the wind blows and what is the latest storm, or fashion or fad. Things are always changing....opinions, desires, attitudes, alliances and enemies. What matters to my artist's soul, is roots that grab the richness of the earth while tangled branches reach toward the heavens, swaying in the wind, bending in the storm and absorbing the light. Perhaps we need both roots and branches to be whole....land and air, gardening boots and gossamer wings? I love Pablo Neruda's poetry and this quote: "Two things make a story. The net and the air that falls through the net." The human heart has more than one dimension and we are free to find ourselves with abundant joy whether we delight in our roots or wings.