Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Learning From A Creative Nosedive



Learning From a Creative Nosedive


Here is an article and piece of artwork I created that was featured on The Universe of Now.  Click on the link above to check it out. :)

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Creative Process

Creativity is in each of us.  It is universal.  It is everywhere. The creative process is there for every one of us to experience and share. We all have the ability to draw on it whenever we want to. We just have to get out of the way.  Why does the world try to make it linear?  I read articles, books, papers, hear it from my teachers...."the correct way to do the creative process".  There is NO correct way!  It leads us where it wants us to go.  It is intelligent.  We just have to train ourselves to put the controlling aspects of our left brain in the background so that we can fully benefit from it's quiet mysterious ways. The best way to know that you are in the process is by the way you feel.  When you really listen to yourself you will know.  You feel energized, alive, and full of passion toward whatever you are creating.  When there are limitations and parameters placed on a project they hold us back.  We are pushed to try to create in a lateral way with linear limitations.  Our mind is constantly giving us limitations, parameters, and direction.  It wants the control.  Its job is to be in control.  If we can bypass that then we are in the place where pure creating takes place. When people critique our work it also takes away the pureness of the creation.  Especially if what was created was a unique and pure act from our intuition.  Why are there so many rules and limitations?  Why do they exist in any artistic field.  You might be saying that they need to exist.  If you look in the past at some of the "Masters"  they pushed past the expected.  They pushed past rules and what was put in place before them.  They forged new ground in a way that changed the world. That is what we are here for.  Society has this mentality that everything needs to be mainstreamed.  In schools kids are taught a certain way....certain curriculum.  They are pumped out to be "responsible, working members of society".  Where is the passion in that?  Can they truly find their purpose in life if they can't find passion in learning and creating their own life?  Decisions are made for them on a daily basis.  We have been taught to produce what others want.  That is our mentality.  We produce work that will please our teachers, family, friends, etc.  Rarely do individuals think truly for themselves.  Rarely in creating do we produce for us, not worrying about the end result and what may happen if we don't do it right.  What is right?  In creativity there is no right and wrong.  There is only right.  Anything you do will lead you to where you need to be.  You may take the long way to get there.  You might fight against the current instead of flowing with the river, but if you stay in the river you will eventually get tired of fighting and let go and let the flow of the river or the process take you and give you what you need.  Which is always the place that is good and right for us.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Step Into Darkness

A step into darkness is a step into the unknown.  You are taking a chance.  Believing in something that you haven't experienced before.  It is exciting and brings emotions and thoughts that you wouldn't have otherwise experienced.  It is allowing yourself to find what's missing.  If you never take a chance you may never find what is absent.  You may not ever know that there was something to miss!

There is a feeling that there is something more.  Something way bigger than any of us can imagine.  We are a part of that.   It draws all of us in and that is where the desire begins.  It begins deep within us.  Somewhere that we inhabited as a child, but a place that we have taught ourselves to ignore.  We don't want to allow ourselves the freedom.  We want everything to be controlled and everything to look perfect.  We want things that we create to look exactly the way our mind sees them.  We don't allow ourselves the room to be true creators.  That is our birth right!  We are creators!  We are all artists.

In our society today we have gone away from our inventive nature.  We no longer have a deep conviction in ourselves to change our future and to lead.  We just float along and accept what life has given us.  We do good things for people.  We contribute to society, have families, go to church, fulfill duties.  But we still yearn inside.  There is a call from within to take us back to our roots.  Back to where we feel the most succesful.  Back to creating purely.  We lose our natural gift to listen to our intuition as we are raised in society.  We are taught the correct way to create.  We are taught what is beautiful and what is not.  What is realistic and what isn't.  We follow everyone's lead.  We make decisions of how to live our life based on other people's successes or failures.  We chart our journey and compare it to others' when we don't even know what we are comparing to.  We have forgotten the true sense of being completely present at every moment, and enjoying everything that we have and everything that we are in the moment.

It's time to wake up!  It's time to DO something about it. It's time to allow ourselves the freedom to be who we really are and to express ourselves the way we choose to!  It's time to forget the things that we have learned about creating.  The things that don't matter.  Who is to say what is good, bad, ugly or beautiful.  Who is to say that an "artist" has to be someone who paints with precise proportion, technique, shape and contrast?  Who makes up these rules that are dying to be broken?  There is an endless abundance of creations waiting to be born inside of you.  They are made up of who you are and all that you are.  They are as unique and beautiful as you.  They will lead you to realize things about yourself and your journey in life.  They will lead you where your future waits for you.

Doesn't that sound exciting?  Doesn't it make you just want to jump out of your chair and cut the chains that are holding you prisoner and create?  How do we go about doing this?  How do we get out of the prison that we have let ourselves get locked into?
  
We have to take the first step into darkness.  That first scary step into the unknown world of creation.  The world that is laying dormant within us.  Everyone's world is different because we are all different. We have to be strong enough to let go.  We have to let go of what our mind is telling us and inhabit the place that is pure within us.  When we do there is a joy that comes with that freedom to express.   

If the desire is there.  Follow it, and see where it leads.  One step at a time it will lead you on a journey deep within yourself, and it will open the flood gates of creativity into your life.  

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

First Step

Creative thoughts have always swirled through my head.  I have been a prisoner though.  Unable to express myself.  Afraid to explore, express, and create.  I have endless desire to create.

 I have been asked to teach art.  The voice inside my head answers, "You don't want me to teach your child, because I will not be teaching them what you want them to learn.  I won't teach perspective, line, shading, shape, contour.  Those are already inside all of us.  I will teach freedom to express and explore.  To truly create.  I would not be teaching at all.  I would allow creative excitement to take place."  I might feel this way because this is what I want for myself.  I want to take the passion I feel inside and pull it out of myself.  I want to create from what I feel inside.   For as long as I can remember I have felt this way. 

When I look at the world, I see magnificence all around me.  I am constantly thinking about how I could capture this beauty through different mediums.  I feel fire in sunsets,  sentiment in rain, solitude in snow storms, and perpetuity when looking into the heavens. I feel different shapes, colors, and emotions are attached to everything we see.  When we look at something we are drawn to it's shape, the way it makes us feel, or possibly the color.  The way it smells, the way it tastes.  We use our senses to allow our soul to enjoy the world around us.  Some things will dominate one sense so profoundly that we are taken back.  Others will tickle every sense and leave us filling fulfilled in a varying way.

We all view the world differently, through different eyes, and different experiences.  It is amazing to me that there is so much out there to create.  I can see it bursting at the seems, yet we are afraid.  We are afraid to take the first step.  Scared of what others might think of our creations.  Maybe we feel we don't have the money to create.  We might feel we don't have the time.  We need to let our souls loose.  We should realize that whether we like it or not we are creating every moment we live.  We are creating our beautiful lives.   We are all creators.  We all create in our own way,  through our dreams, our thoughts, our lives.  We create happiness in our home, joy in others. We create the food we eat, the way we dress ourselves.  We can create happiness each day, or sadness.  We can choose what we want to create.  We just need to take the first step.  If we could truly realize our capabilities then there wouldn't be anything that could hold us back from attaining our innermost desires.

We need to allow our souls to be free even for just a moment.  Allow ourselves to feel that tingle inside.  The burning desire to create.  When we don't follow the desire, we can feel depressed and hollow.  This is my passion, my desire.  I want to learn to listen to my own unique creative intuition and follow it.