Try Something New

What do you think?  My husband forwards emails from the magazine, Cloth, Paper, Scissors, a mixed media magazine I adore. He gets the email because the subscription is one of my Christmas gifts.  I have every issue…it is that good.  The last email really was a keeper, another synchronous event. I want to share Dave Matthew’s quote and Carrie Schmitt’s poem because they can support us in any new adventure along our Sage-ing journey. See what you think.

 Shared Hesitancy at Trying Something New

I was having a daily conversation with a friend who has been a witness and sometimes reluctant participant in my workshops who identified why she doesn’t jump into art. She says, “I am too timid and too rigid.”  Me, too, and yet I muddle on. 

Dave Matthews once said, "You've gotta try something new every once in a while."

 

How To Become An Intuitive Artist by Carrie Schmitt

You wake up one day and want to be an artist. You wish you could go back to school and study art.
You wonder, "Is it too late to start again?"
You discover talented self-taught artists online that are living boldly on their terms.
You want to do that.
You discover intuitive painting, which is about freeing the creativity within.
You put paint to canvas. Timidly. You try to embrace the qualities of intuitive painting--not to judge what is happening on the canvas, not to have self-doubt, to trust the process, to let go of inhibition and restraint.
You judge what is happening on the canvas.
You doubt everything you are doing.
You think this process is for special artsy types with spiky purple hair, tattoos, and combat boots.
You don't know how to let go. You've been holding on to so much for so long.
You keep painting anyway. You stumble through the beginner's shaky rite of passage. The rough patches. The unsophisticated muck. You scratch the surface of what might be possible with time.
You sense the wild within you, but it is stuck. You start to remember this long ago silenced self. You wonder how to get this out of you.
You get frustrated. You think you can't do it. You keep going.
You have so much to unlearn.
You unlearn "I am not creative."
You unlearn "Only a few special people are artists."
You unlearn "I am not good enough."
You learn to trust.
Trusting yourself means believing in yourself, means loving yourself, means caring for yourself, means your world just flipped upside down.
Because caring for your whole self-mind, body, and spirit--becomes essential. You are a sacred vessel from which creativity flows.
You are sacred.
You create. Over and over. Each time unraveling. Visiting the layers of your self. Diving deeper, your heart swells. There are sensations of light, fire, bursting, shifting, cracking, floating, flowing.
You paint what has never existed before.
You awaken parts of you that never existed before.
Your intuition grows stronger.
The wild in you begins to emerge. You are coming home to yourself.
You feel your power.
You start to see beauty and possibility everywhere. Within. Without.
You let go.
There is softness in the surrender.
You unfold. You let things out. You reclaim the parts of yourself that you love. You forgive the ones that you don't. You thank them for what they have taught and toss them out with the paint water.
You let the lines blur.
You let the paint guide you.
You let go.
You finish the painting.
You start again.
Carrie Schmitt is an artist who celebrates the beauty of flowers using an intuitive painting process. Her book, Painted Blossoms: Creating Expressive Flower Art with Mixed Media, teaches the art techniques and soulful practices that allow her joy to find expression on canvas.

 How about you?

Is there something you would like to try but intimidates you. I conclude that in a few years we can become an expert…OK…or a good-enough expert, with the knowledge explosion on the Web, text, Webinars, and YouTube videos…and, of course, all sorts of e-communication I have probably not discovered.  The photo is of the beginning of a mixed media piece on canvas board, a big step for me to experiment with Golden texture products. I plan to add some text and I just don’t know what yet…but at least I have glitter in the paint!!!!!!!!!!

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A favorite quote: "The enemy of the good is the better."  ("Better is the enemy of the good." Attributed to Voltaire)

 

Visit www.clothpaperscissors.com for free e-books, free webinars and a plethora of other resources if art sounds appealing

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