I didn't believe I had an artistic bone in my body until I was 32 years old and REQUIRED to take a university fine arts class. While it was an introductory class, all of the other students had obviously considered themselves artistic and had continued drawing, painting and exploring art all of their lives. I had not... I quit in about grade eight when mandatory art classes quit in school.Oh it wasn't that I didn't LIKE art.
It was that at 6 years of age I'd surmised that I was NOT an artist. How did I know that? Because I remember vividly coloring happily beside my childhood playmate and family friend when my aunt came up behind us. "Oh Cherie!" she exclaimed, "How beautiful! Ma-a-ble," she hollered, "Come and see what your daughter is doing!" Turning back to Cherie she continued, "YOU are such an artist... just like your dad... Ma-a-able, come see!" And then, realizing that I was sitting right beside Cherie, and I am sure not wanting to ignore me she added quickly, "Oh and that's good too Maggie." I still remember my heart pounding and shame at my own coloring pulsing through my veins. Decidedly I was NOT an artist.
I buried the pain and shame back then but it arose with a vengeance during those first few months in art class. It was at its worst when our art instructor would direct us to go around and look at each others’ art work. "No!" I cried inside, "Anything but that!" But of course we did wander around and I looked enviously and incredulously at what others had created. "How come theirs looks beautiful and mine looks like this?" I felt hopeless. No matter how hard I tried to do all of the left-brained things I'd been taught in elementary school like shading the outside to make something look rounder mine still looked dead... dull... and uninteresting.
I blamed part of it on the instructor... I couldn't even see the beauty in any of the brown, black, and grey items he heaped upon the table. Turns out, this was the real problem... not that I couldn't draw, I simply couldn't see the beauty. One day as we were studying value... the amount of light in objects…our instructor asked, "What is the lightest value here?" "Duh... I thought, "It's that cream colored water pitcher... everything else is brown, grey or black."
Luckily the woman next to me was quicker to respond, "It's that pin prick of light shining off of that beer bottle." What! Holy s*** she's right! That point is the lightest... wait a minute... not only is that lighter but there are shapes of lightness and shadows in that bottle... that's what they are seeing - and drawing!!!
It was an awakening for me. I felt like a very dirty windshield I'd been looking through all of my life had been wiped clean. How life now sparkled! I now saw beauty everywhere... I looked more deeply and with greater curiosity into everything... I saw beauty in the minutest details I'd overlooked all my life: the snow crystals shining luminously on the oregon grape leaf; the suds bopping up and down and exploding in the dishpan; the joyous wonder of the rinse water cascading over the clean pot. New beauty was everywhere!
Art opened my eyes to astounding beauty everywhere, ignited my imagination and infused my mind and heart with a thirst for creative adventure in day to day life. I see more beauty in nature... and the more beauty I see, the more beauty I feel inside of me! Not only that, but the beauty that I could now see, the curiosity that had been awakened, spilled over psychologically into my relationships and other parts of my life.
Today, beauty and color abound as I tap into rivulets of colors and shapes, spinning and turning, only to carry me deeper into the mystery of the moment.
I want to share this with you! Come and enjoy the process of artistic creation. We have a very special format that will teach you how to focus on enjoying the process rather than critiquing and comparing your work to others every step of the way. You'll discover how to allow your own inner flow to ripple out onto the paper. And without the critique it's so much easier.
This glowing experience, the insights you'll gain about yourself - will overflow into other areas of your life. The more you flow the more you glow!
What do people like most about these playshops?
“Being given back the right to play - to laugh more and often. I have been given the freedom to be who I really am. I don't have to be everything to everybody."
“I loved all the activities and the sharing. A real environment of caring and trust was created. Loved the play exercises and listening to your emotions and inner child.”
"Learned to live from my inner self. Come dare to be your Self."