Awakening to Our Creativity Through Painting:
A Model for Creative Living

Painting Free and Easy
Twenty squeeze bottles each filled with its own color of tempera... Tempera, the paint of childhood, opaque watercolor, brushes, water cups... Colors to apply however you choose. Paper hung on the wall...white rectangles, a blank canvas for each painter. Have you ever wished for a fresh start, a clean slate...a blank canvas will do. Using non-precious materials we have as many fresh starts as we desire.

Given the opportunity: what color(s) do you choose; what size brush, what rhythm, strokes-slow, smooth, quick, jerky, flowing, or dot and dab? What shapes, forms or images appear? Do you stay with the original paper, make it smaller, or add more and more paper until your wall is covered?

Two years ago I took a week-long painting workshop in New Mexico. It was such a powerful experience that I have been painting ever since. Desiring to share my experience with others, I lead Painting Free and Easy Workshops each month, hold weekly painting sessions at my workspace in Kingston, NY, and have a portable tray of paints I take to other locations to give workshops.

In writing this article, I have had the opportunity to explore and put into words what I have discovered through Painting Free and Easy. Writing has helped me understand how this workshop interfaces with psychosynthesis, my own painting process, and classical theories of the creative process. I am grateful for all that I have learned during the past years and hope that it can be useful to others.

The Natural Artist and Compassionate Observer
Painting Free and Easy is an art experience that provides an opportunity for participants to explore their relationship with their unique Natural Artists. As we proceed, painters find out which personal messages interrupt their creative process. To deal effectively with these inhibitors of creativity, we invite, model and nurture the Compassionate Observer.

Given the opportunity to paint freely, each of us begins to discover our own way of using color, shape and form. I am always fascinated to see how the very same materials, in the hands of different people, become a wonderful array of images and styles. Each of us has a Natural Artist which, like all subpersonalities, has its own history.

While some childhood artists are nurtured and encouraged, many have been told they were neither creative nor talented, and many others have received instruction to paint and draw in particular "right or wrong" ways that disavow their natural creative instinct. In psychosynthesis, we know that these limiting experiences become the basis of the most challenging inhibitor of creativity, the Inner Critic, who has been well trained in a culture where the Art Critic visits every show, and where publications and schools often profess a right or wrong way to make art. For many of us, this Critic has a strong influence. And even though its effect is uncomfortable and limiting, we may have never seen another model or received instruction in seeing things from a positive and truly creative perspective.

In Painting Free and Easy, we invite in the Compassionate Observer who offers the Inner Critic new ways of painting and seeing. We know that it is helpful to embrace all the parts of ourselves and not be judgmental. Here we have an opportunity to practice working with subpersonalities through art. The Inner Critic and the Compassionate Observer are the lower and higher expressions of a very important part of ourselves that has to do with discernment and making choices, clearly an important role with implications beyond painting. Coming into right relationship with the Compassionate Observer and the Inner Critic in the painting experience is a model for living creatively in daily life.

The Compassionate Observer is curious, asks questions, listens and is interested in our response. For example:

• You have used the color blue in many ways...could you tell me about the blue over there and down here...?
• If you could walk into your painting, where would you wander? Why?
• If you follow this path, where might it take you?
• Where in this painting do you experience the most energy? If you could go there now, what would it feel like?

The Compassionate Observer helps to deepen our experience, invites the wisdom of the inner voice, and embodies the qualities of curiosity and wonder that allow us to interact with our painting. By just showing up and painting freely, we facilitate the flow of creative energy, learn to trust the creative process and are led to our next step.

A Model for Living Creatively
Psychosynthesis teaches us that if we invite in a "higher" quality, it will in time bring up all that is in the way of reaching our potential. Because painting is physical, because the paint and paper are non-precious, we can allow ourselves to keep putting color on paper. We can continue to fill up one page or use many to push through and let go... and let go... and let go...

Paintings become the ultimate lost-and-found box. The rectangle of paper holds an ever-changing array of color, shape and form. We play coyote/trickster by showing up and continuing to put paint on paper, open to the possibility of surprise. Colors and designs appear in ways we least expect, and Ahah! We meet many old inner friends and patterns, sense them, feel them, name them and let them go. And every change makes for new relationships. As we learn to just let go and allow the painting to continue, we see how creative energy finds its way through.

Here in the art room, we have a laboratory and classroom that offer the opportunity to practice making decisions and changes. We experience fear, frustration, inspiration, effort, failure and success, among others. When we proceed in a setting that is safe and encourages the presence of the Compassionate Observer, old patterns transform. We discover and practice this creative process so that we can bring this knowing to other parts of our lives.

Applicability to Life and Other Creative Arts: A Real Life Example
As I sit at my computer I wonder what would happen if I apply the process I have just described to writing this article. Will the process that I have learned through painting be helpful with writing? I am also interested in finding out if this work fits within the parameters of the classically defined stages of creativity: Preparation (input mode), Incubation (processing mode), Illumination (output mode), and Verification.

Preparation
Over the past weeks I have been writing this article using the same format that I use when I am painting; that is, sometimes the paper, and at others the computer screen, serves as the blank canvas. I start by writing freely, just putting down ideas. At the same time I am reading the book, Higher Creativity, by Willis Harman and Howard Rheingold, and I glance at psychosynthesis books, papers and notes. Some familiar voices come in: "I haven't written a paper in years! What do you mean, 'the Natural Writer,' I'm no writer." And then some newer voices: "It's O.K., just show up and put words on paper, take a gentle look, ask questions, stay curious."

Incubation
Life goes on, and I put all of this on the "back burner" while I do the things of daily life. At moments I see things that I want to remember and jot them down. The whole jumble goes into the computer.

Illumination
Now it is time to open up the file, print out the words and see what has emerged. As I read, headings go to sections and the pieces realign themselves into a paper. It has been difficult to trust this process; I was sure the jumble would be just that! Once again I revisit old friends-the little girl put back in school who believes she is not very bright, the high schooler meeting the external critic, the graduate student who learned to love school. I invite in the Compassionate Observer who reads and discerns, edits with encouragement, and expresses curiosity about the material and the process.

Verification
What a surprise, it's coming together! As I write, I am learning the words I need to help me understand why painting has become such an important part of my life. I have verified how I can use what I have learned from Painting Free and Easy.