Heartsong Studio

If you have an inner critic, you probably know how judgment can debilitate creativity. You could tell yourself many stories of why you’re blocked in creative work at times, but the real reason may lie in your past experiences.

Whatever the cause, the automatic response to fear is avoidance. And who could blame you ! Self-criticism can really destroy your joy.

Two crucial phases in the creative process where it’s best to avoid judgment:

1. in the initial phase of the work, and

2. again later, when the project has run its course.

1. Instead of what is right or wrong, the initial phase could begin with:

>>> Let’s see what happens ! <<<

This opens things up to experimentation and sets aside expectations and predetermined results. Before a thing comes into being, there are no standards of worth, nothing to prove or disprove, no way to value the act and its object.

2. Later on, towards completion, it is more useful to replace criticism with:

>>> Non-judgmental Seeing. <<<

Slow down, and carefully, thoroughly scrutinize and describe exactly what you see. This shifting your focus from judgment to description may sound simple and easy. In fact, it is neither.

It is an extremely powerful, intellectual process that can reveal qualities of the project which would otherwise remain obscure. It yields vital information that can guide new work.

The thing you just made has never been seen before by anyone, including you, and the important thing - the only thing - to do now is to become acquainted with it. What good are all the undiscovered elements coming out of our hands until we are aware of them ?

One reward of spending all this active seeing time:

Material comes forward from the conscious mind, but it also seeps up from the subconscious and the collective unconscious. This often expresses itself as seeming “accidents”. These can turn out to be brilliant discoveries.

There are no accidents.

The longer we look, the more we see. To see new things in a work we’ve created is to see new aspects of ourselves. The more we see, the better we see. The better we see, the better we can become.

Rather than ask yourself questions like - is it right or wrong ? good or bad ?- try asking questions that change your focus to non-judgmental seeing :

1. How honest was I in disclosing what I know and feel in my heart ?

2. How deep did I allow myself to go ?

3. What range of new territory have I explored ?

4. How close to the centre of my sense of self did I dare to go ?

5. What really resonates within me as true in the work; and what is false or tinny ?

How can you avoid judgment when your inner critic overpowers you ?

It can’t be stopped by pushing it away. Self-criticism is a learned behavior and meant to protect you from shame or wrong doing at some past time. What was learned and repeated becomes a habit, but habits can be changed.

When that critical voice next challenges you, sit with it and own it first. Then ask it insightful questions to assess its present worth to you.

1. How honest is this criticism in light of what I know to be true in my heart ?

2. How deep does it actually go ?

3. What range of old territory does it refer to ?

4. How close to the centre of my sense of self does it truly come ?

5. What really resonates within me as true in this criticism, and what seems false ?

Then, to complete the peace-making, give it a job to do which better suits its talents. Your critical mind is good at scrutinizing for detail. Let it help you in non-judgmental seeing.

Why be limited to only seeing what you expect to see ?

You can enlist the skill of this mind to help your creative mind find deeper meanings in what has come through you. After awhile, it doesn’t seem so much that you are of two minds anymore. As you change this habit, you gain a more balanced approach in your own process.

The human mind needs to be educated, but it also needs to be illuminated. By being present, attentive, and reflective, our inner selves become less dependent on our critical minds to provide the answers or direction in our lives. This warming of our imagination may bring to life something unexpected.

Evaluate if you must, but evaluate the genuineness and the true origins of your work.
Evaluate the truth of your critical voices. Evaluate the truth of everything. Then choose.

Only listen to the One authentic voice.

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What will she say about her husband’s insanity, Jack wonders. . . then he marvels at her stunning choice of words. He couldn’t have made it up himself ! Yet, Jack sits at his word processor, and watches to see what will come out of the mouths of his characters in the book he’s writing.

Wait a minute. Isn’t Jack writing this book ?

Yes he is, but if he just made it all up, it would be a story all about him interacting with himself. How very boring - for him too. Instead, he allows the spirit to come to life through his art. That’s what artists do. So he works in relationship with his subjects as they come into being before his very eyes.

Can you share this cooperative effort ?

There you stand at your easel or other place of work, deeply respecting the essence of your subject, letting it find the way to express its unique spirit through you. It’s very tempting, when things are going well, to take over and feel quite heady about making the piece go where you think it should go.

More often I find, when things are not going as swiftly in the direction I think they should, it’s hard not to let my mind help things along with some judicious pushing - or so I tell myself.

When art comes too easily, it loses its art.

Of course it’s scary to be a participant in a birth: mother, father, midwife, or artist. That’s what makes it so valuable. In our quest for joy, we ought not lose our respect for our spiritual connection. It’s giving birth, not taking birth.

Things didn’t go as expected with the birth of my friend’s third baby.

They had done it twice before, and had it all planned with a midwife and a warm pool of water. But sometimes you cannot predict what will happen and what your needs will be.

My friend’s wife went through many hours of prelabour, and so expected to be several more hours once hard labour began. Inside of about 10 minutes, their new daughter was born into her father’s hands ! Oh, and the midwife arrived in time to clean up.

Often you’ll want to explore some options first in giving birth to a work of art, to keep your mind feeling free enough to cooperate with your heart. Once you go into the final labour of birthing a new work, you need to feel safe enough to follow your heart, and have everything you might need at your fingertips.

Let your newly emerging work dictate what method you end up using. Be prepared to drop all your prior plans if that’s what your heart tells you. On the other hand, you also might be in labour for days and weeks before your work faces the light of day.

Keep the lines of communication open, stay light on your feet, and keep the faith.

* The author ended up developing rich characters he’d never met before.

* My friend now has a big healthy baby girl.

* You will have begun something surprising and new too, that the world has not yet seen.
When you marvel at what you’ve birthed, you’ll understand what Nicola Temple meant when she said:

“I had no idea that something like this was inside me, to make a beautiful painting without any preconceived plan.”

Nicola also went on to birth a real miracle baby boy a few months later.

The sensitive balance between your heart and mind can apply to any undertaking. You don’t need to have been a biological parent to grow from the birthing experience. Love once experienced in any field is there for you to give again in other situations.

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If the slow start to spring reflects your own artistic lack of umph, here’s a spring tonic.

You might think you cannot make a painting if you can’t draw anything. Or, you can work endlessly on a piece and it seems to go nowhere, or stay unresolved. If you have just finished a big painting, you may feel spent.

So what can you do at times like this ? Do you close up shop and conclude that you mustn’t be much of a natural artist, or you’d always be head over heels in love with some image or piece you’re working on ?

I wouldn’t buy that if I were you !

There’s a simple fix for your spirits that anyone can use, whether you’re an experienced artist or still a wanna-be.

This is what I do, and you can too.

Go out and pick up old plywood boards. They could be rectangular, or not. One of my favourite pieces has a very irregular shape. You might need to wash off hunks of mud.

It helps to have access to a workshop, garage, or backyard with old pieces of wood lying about, or at least a partner, friend or neighbour with the same. Access to a beach with lots of junk washing ashore is an excellent source for your adventure.

Ready for the highly technical bit ?

It’s a lot like lying in a hammock looking at cloud formations. Turn each over on all sides and from all angles. What you’re looking at is the wood grain. See the grain pattern with soft eyes.

Eventually some form will jump out at you, like a familiar landscape, a wheat field, a shoreline, or who knows, even a prehistoric bird.

You don’t have to draw anything !!!

There’s lots of paintings waiting for your discovery out there. When you find one that catches your fancy, simply follow the wood grain with quite watery acrylic paint, toning the colours to suit what you’ve found. A knot hole could be a sun, moon, or eye. Ripples could be the forest floor or sand on the shore.

Here are two of mine:

Medicine Beach is made by the Infinite, not me, I swear.

All I drew - if drew is the right word - was the horizon. This line wasn’t in the wood grain, and it isn’t even straight ! The shape of the point jutting out is exactly like a beach here called Medicine Beach.

By keeping the paint very watery it looks like the water’s edge, where you can see the sand ripples.

If you find it, it’s yours.

After finding and teasing out this beach, without contributing much more than a horizon line, the feeling was of renewed faith, and having been given a gift.

Morning Star

The extent of my contribution to Morning Star was a couple of slivers !  All I did for this one was break off some of the layers of frayed plywood so it was uneven.

Then I saw what looked like a distant city, and painted lines of dry grass across the cracks for a field outside the city as my vantage point. Two knot holes made the Sun and Venus, the morning star, hence the title.

This was another renewal of creative faith.

To find a gift waiting for you, to help it become visible, is an incredible feeling. It’s a little like getting away with something, you know. And you are. You’re getting away with delight at some of the gifts all around, just meant for you to find.

It’s finding gifts that only you can find, and that makes you feel quite special. And you are.

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