Art Lessons

I have learned a great deal from a lifetime of enjoying art and creating things that has taught me a lot about life. What I’ve gained from this has helped me to become a better counsellor, a better parent, and a better artist, but it has also clarified a lot of what I value about myself. The creative process, whether it is writing poetry, dabbling with crayons, painting a mural, or making a picture from shells in the sand, takes me to another place within. We aren’t designed merely for calculating numbers, solving practical problems, generating to-do lists, or fixing things that are broken, it is clear that most people need more. We yearn for self-expression – to transform some feeling or notion deep within us into forms that can be shared and enjoyed. It is a sad thing indeed that sometimes in this modern world we place more value on the calculations, problem-solving, goal setting and fixing, and yet interestingly all these skills can be applied to the process of creating. Turning inspiration into form often requires of the creator a range of skills that make the difference between a bit of fun and a “masterpiece”. Creatives can become masters at multiple skills without even realising it. This book is about tapping into some of these “side products” and utilising them to enhance our lives and our creative products. No one really knows when a masterpiece may emerge because no one really knows where the process will end up when they begin. Creating and living a good life are really about the process and not the end products. From art I have gained insights that have helped me to live a full and content life, better manage the challenges I’ve faced, and help my counselling clients. Most importantly I have learned to truly “walk the walk” not just “talk the talk”. As a counsellor (and parent) I am constantly exposed and I have learned that my actions must be connected to my values and my deepest beliefs. Anything less than this becomes pretty obvious to observers and I feel it makes me “hollow” as a helper. Naturally, my journey is a life-long process but I seek to live in a way that is authentic and if I have any hope of assisting others I need to be prepared to work on my own issues. This means I push myself to grow even if I have to move outside my comfort zone. This book is about learning to push a few boundaries creatively, digging a bit deeper into the creative process to develop new self-awareness that in turn can help to produce creative products with depth. I want to share with you the insights I’ve learned in the hope that even one new idea might spark some inspiration within, whether you want to be a better artist or writer, musician, counsellor or parent, learn more about what is holding you back, or help you find out where you want to go next. I am an artist, writer, poet, psychologist, creative arts psychotherapist and parent. This book is for everyone who fits into at least one of these groups. The art forms I focus most on are visual art and poetry but the insights in this book apply to all forms of creative expression. The ideas presented here can be useful as a source book for creative types and creative problem-solvers alike. It can also serve to inspire people who would like to be either of these things. Like all really good ideas and strategies, nothing presented here will make a difference unless it is put into practice – the key ingredient has to be ACTION. Therefore this book presents a model to assist in turning ideas into actions and I call it “creative cross-training”. Ok so what does this mean? Athletes would be aware that cross training is a technique that seeks to exploit the benefits derived from sports activities that lie outside their particular area of expertise. For example a runner utilises different muscles to a weightlifter or a skater. Some exercise requires more of the body’s muscles that are involved in balance and others need muscles for quick sprinting. If an athlete were to just stick to their own field of activity i.e. rowing a boat, they might reach a plateau in their skills and never become the best rower they can be. This is why rowers often do cycling or swimming to extend their training regime – through cross-training they can round out their skills helping make them more efficient rowers. So what on earth has this got to do with the creative process? Creative cross-training is not a completely new idea. This book draws inspiration from ideas presented in Stephen D. Eiffort’s “Cross-train your brain” (1999). Eiffort’s approach focuses largely on written journaling in order to improve problem solving ability and self-awareness. The approach taken in this book is based on how I have extended possibilities through using multiple modes of creativity and tapped into creativity to help “shift gears”, get out of ruts, inspire new approaches to challenges and live a better life. It’s amazing how many people I’ve met get hung up about making the great artworks and the fear of failure freezes them so they end up doing nothing. They stagnate and their inspiration slowly dies. As any good counsellor well tell you, this stagnation can spread rapidly to all aspects of a person’s life – the problem may have started with a bit of writer’s block, but before you know it, the person is sad, discouraged and lacking self-motivation. Creative cross training can help in self-development as a means to shift out of stuck space emotionally and generate potential solutions to problems. One pathway out of all kinds of stagnation (whether it be about creative blocks or personal blocks due to feeling stuck) can be to create for the sake of growth. Art can be an excellent way to integrate learning, helping us to make connections we might otherwise struggle to make (Marshall, 2005). We can gain a lot from applying art making and learning to detach a little from the outcome to live more in the here and now. Creative processes have an amazing way of focusing us back into the present moment. So much angst comes from worry about a future that cannot be known, or worry about the past that cannot be changed. Reflecting on our future goals and past memories can offer amazing material for us creatively (and indeed can offer tips for us when creatively problem-solving) but we need to remember that we don’t “live” there in either the future or the past. Sometimes past regrets and sadness, or worry about what may or may not happen in the future can keep us frozen and unable to affect change. We can learn to better manage the thoughts we have about our past or future worries and better focus on being in the “now”. This means creative process has a lot to learn from a type of meditation called mindfulness practice. Mindfulness can be described as “moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment” (Davis and Hayes, 2011). It is in the present moment where we can develop ourselves through creative awareness. The ideas in this book draw heavily on things that can be learnt from mindfulness practice. If you don’t already have a meditation practice I would strongly encourage you to start. There are plenty of resources available to find an approach that works and mindfulness is a skill that can be developed and will enhance any kind of creative work or creative problem solving.