Tag: The Artist’s Way

  • Thoughts on The Artist’s Way

    In Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way”, one of the issues she brings up for blocked artists is poisonous relationships. They can come in many forms from a non-supportive parent or spouse to a jealous acquaintance who tears down your artistic attempts at every turn.

    Struggling with a bit of my own blight, I realize how fortunate I am. The gang here is wonderful, as well as others in my life, both on the internet and off. Even a coworker who knows of my passion for writing has expressed interest and gentle concern.

    As a result, I’m taking baby steps toward picking up the pen again. I owe a lot of thanks to the folks who have helped by giving me pressure free challenges. You gals rock!

    Is there anyone in your life who actively or passively sabotages your creativity? If so, I hope you’ll rethink your friendships and how you relate to family. I definitely recommend reading Cameron’s book and wish the best for you!

    Now I’m off to type up something I wrote during the wee hours of the night. The opportunity actually makes me grateful for a brief and rare bout of insomnia.

  • Wiley Wednesday – Having an Artsy Attitude

    I’m not sure if this fits the definition of a Wiley for this fine Wednesday, but I ran into something I simply had to share. You could most definitely say it fits with the Artist’s Way teachings of Julia Cameron, at any rate.

    While reading a magazine the other day, I found an interesting interview with a comic book artist. This man admits to sometimes not being able to make a living with his art, at time forced to work a factory job. All the same, he doesn’t regret his choice.

    And he didn’t exactly get encouragement, either. His parents, unsupportive to epic proportions, actually demanded he earn an engineering degree.

    What really caught my attention was something specific that happened during his school days. A teacher, whom he defends, actually tore up one of his drawings! Apparently, this man considered the work to have been a waste of time despite the care put into the effort. I really felt for that young artist, who happened to have been proud of his achievement.

    However, rather than expressing any bitterness, our hero accepts each pitfall as a step to his ultimate dream. I don’t know about you, but I find immense encouragement from that.

    Whatever your medium of choice, I wish you happy creating!

  • Dead Battery

    Sitting in a rainstorm with a dead car battery, I can’t help comparing this situation to my writing. For various reasons, work stress among them, I feel too drained by day’s end to write. It’s like my characters have abandoned me.

    However, I’m not calling it quits. I knew what number to call for help today, so there is surely some key to storytelling locked inside me. First, I need to sit down and make the effort to write whether I feel like it or not. Taking that step is one hundred percent more likely to produce words on the page than not trying.

    Perhaps I’ll start now while waiting for my savior with the jumper cables.

    Then again, I have my “Artist’s Way” book by Julian Cameron. It’s designed to enable higher creativity without forcing oneself.

    Rather than speaking of a drained battery, Ms. Cameron would probably tell me that I need to fill my creative well. There are many fun ways to do that. This week five of “The Artist’s Way” advises collecting images of postponed pleasures and desires. I think it’s time to go through a gardening catalog. Then I can head over to a garden center when the weather warms and put my artist’s eye toward shaping my yard into some fresh new visualization.

    Weekly artist’s dates, times spent all by myself doing something fun, are another big tool from Julia Cameron’s arsenal. The visit to said garden center would make a great date even before time to plant.

    What about you? Is it time to charge that battery or fill your well? What interesting venture might aid you in the goal?

  • Opening the Window

    Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way” likens opening our minds to gradually wedging open a door. I think of that today because I decided to open the window so I could hear the birds.

    Doing that simple act made me wish it were so easy to let in story ideas and create. I did succeed in writing a short story today, but I noticed with the window open that a lot more than birdsong entered my room. There was traffic sound from the road and industrial noise from a nearby factory, but my brain filtered those out for the most part so that I could hear the cardinals sing and the squirrels chatter.

    The same works for our creativity. We need to filter out distractions. Sometimes that might mean getting a nuisance chore out of the way so we can focus. For other situations, we might need to shut the door on unimportant matters for a while.

    For me, at least, creation comes from a place of peace. I’m learning to cultivate a sense of that by uplifting important matters to a higher significance and balancing out the rest the best I can. I hope you manage to do the same.

  • Artist’s Way

    It’s official, I’m actually embarking on a type of self-help program. Me. I never expected this in a million years. I’ve tended to just shake my head at a friend of mine constantly reading therapeutic advice. Peak in her magazine rack and you’ll find all sorts of periodicals and books on raising children, improving marital relations, organizing the home, you name it.

    Her computer monitor is decorated with a plethora of motivational stickers. Mine has pictures of sexy men, all my self improvement directed toward writing smut. Honestly, I have yet to see any of her allegedly life-changing endeavors have any lasting impact, giving me no reason to change my opinion.

    So why am I trying Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”? My chief reason is the same explanation for what I’m doing right now – blogging. The gifted folks of this Writer’s Retreat have inspired me to try many unexpected things. When some from this group and The Evanston Writers Workshop banded together for the months long program, my enthusiasm piqued.

    Anything that opens my creative mind can only be good. And the testimonies I have been personally given inspire me to keep an open mind. Who knows? Like anything worthwhile, this will take time and commitment. Maybe I’ll be touting this to my pal three months from now. I’ll keep you updated. And in the meantime, I hope you’re finding the spirit of creation in whatever you do!

  • The Kingdom of Sound

    The third kingdom or chapter in “The Vein of Gold” is related to sound. Sound is powerful and can be used in many ways to heal the individual. Ms. Cameron suggests washing in sound, building a sound shield, setting moods, and using silence as exercises to help us get in touch with ourselves.

    Washing in sound is a technique you may already use to clear your mind after a hard day at work or school. Putting on music to help ‘wash’ away the stress you feel. You may choose the sound of soothing waves or the sound of Native American drums. Or you might head straight for the loud and cathartic rock music. It’s a tried and true method teenagers have used for years to blow off their ‘controlling parents’.

    This task was easy for me. I already have CD’s burned for each of my moods and keep them in my car. By the time I’ve finished the commute from work I feel better and more relaxed. I use Enya and Sarah McLaughlin to soothe me, their music can be very much like lullabies. They cradle me in their beautiful melodies, using lyrics that help center me. Screaming along with Linken Park and Nickelback help me vent frustrations. They allow the rage I feel to surface and dissipate in the safety of my car, not at home on unsuspecting family members. My AFI and 30 Seconds to Mars albums encourage me to whine and pout, literally. Pounding on the steering wheel and shaking my head.

    NOTE: I drive home in the early hours of the morning when there are few other drivers to see the ‘crazy lady’ in the car next to them singing at the top of her voice. You might need to wait until you arrive home to begin your ‘washing’, or at least be less obvious as you listen to your music in traffic.

    Sound can also be used to build a shield around you. Sitting on a crowded train you will be bombarded by the conversations and bustle of those seated next to you. Putting on your iPod and listening to your choice of music can create a bubble around you, a ‘shield’ if you will. It will protect you from the influx of noise and allow you to think your own thoughts, to focus on your book or laptop. It is one more way to use sound for your well being. A friend of mine uses the Red Hot Chili Peppers to keep the world at bay as she commutes, allowing her to use the time productively.

    Music can create a mood, more effectively than any other medium. The images Hitchcock used in his infamous ‘Psycho’ shower scene would be infinitely diminished without the screeching strings of the background music. The deep bass sounds that signal the entrance of the shark in ‘Jaws’ induce more fear than the pictures onscreen do. Even if the viewer turns away, they are still at the mercy of the music. Good filmmakers know and use this fact.

    Use music as your own soundtrack. One type of music might help you feel safe, another more likely to take chances with your life or your art. Experiment and see what happens.

    The absence of sound can be powerful as well. “It’s so loud I can’t hear myself think!” is a literal statement. Silence allows the mind to let perceptions and ideas trot themselves out and BE noticed; without being pushed to the side by louder and more insistent cares.

    One of the exercises was to make our own ‘Silence Task’. I have tried doing the commute to work in silence, the drive home I ‘wash in sound’. At first I found the silence uncomfortable. What am I supposed to do with no music, no one to talk to? But soon my thoughts began to take over. Where am I going to take my next chapter? How can I best deal with my son’s poor grades? Why do I allow people to make me feel less?

    In silence, insights come to us. Silence allows our thoughts freedom to wander, and they will wander where we need them to go. Stillness brings to light the beauties-and pains-we keep suppressed.

    Religions use silence to help their followers focus and gain inspiration. Prayer, in its most powerful form is silent; between the individual and the Creator alone. Monks take vows of silence and Native Americans take solitary spirit journeys to learn from this potent instrument.

    “And silence, like a poultice comes
    To heal the blows of sound.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

    As human beings, we use sound constantly. Caroling at Christmas time, singing hymns in church, crooning lullabies to children are all good examples of this. Everyone has a ‘workout’ playlist for the gym and learned to read by singing the alphabet song.

    Sound is universal. Sound is therapeutic. Sound is intrinsic to our well being. Try these exercises and use sound for your own benefit.

  • Vein of Gold–Alchemy Exercise

    Vein of Gold–Alchemy Exercise

    In the book ‘Vein of Gold’, I found one exercise particularly interesting. It is titled ‘Alchemy’. It consists of taking the destructive and painful words that were used to describe us as children and converting them into strengths, or positives. As in the ancient belief that alchemy as a science could convert a common metal like lead into gold, so are we to take these ‘wound-words’ and find their gold–or make that–silver lining.

    Often, parents and teachers will find a child’s gifts threatening or disruptive. Through these words they are able to tamp down that talent in an effort to make the child behave, or in worse cases, maliciously to scold, ridicule or shame. Eventually, after hearing these judgments over and over again, the child begins to believe them.

    A partial list of some of these destructive words might include, but is certainly not limited to: dreamer, impractical, irresponsible, lazy, weird, too sensitive, unrealistic, silly, childish, grandiose, foolish, not disciplined, not focused, selfish. Have any of these words been used to describe you in an unkind way?

    Taking these hurtful memories and accepting them has a therapeutic effect, like cleaning a wound is necessary before it can heal properly. It can be painful, but with a pinch of compassion and some creative thinking we can see the very weaknesses we were derided for, are really the strengths that make us the creative people that we are.

    For example:

    Dreamer can be converted to—-Imaginative

    Eccentric becomes—-Original

    Obsessed makes one—-Focused

    Silly turns into—-Playful

    Unrealistic means—-Generous

    Too sensitive changes into—-Passionate

    There, you get the idea. Now, make a list of ten of those labels that have been used to abuse your self esteem and creativity and ‘convert’ them into gold.

    Now you have your list of Golden Words, ‘consecrate’ them; make them real, the new you and not the old. Post them on cards, decorate them with calligraphy, glitter, illustrations, anything to make them more valid and vivid to you.

    Take these new descriptions of yourself and tape them on mirrors throughout the house, pin them up at your desk at work, or on the door so you are reminded of the new and positive you each time you leave your home and venture into the world.

  • Converted

    Many members of our group have already done the Artist’s Way workshop and the following books with Catherine, but I’m a first-timer.

    Ever have those things that just happen to fall right into your life, right when you need them? I’ll be honest, I resisted this for a while, thinking I didn’t have the time, or even (yeah, ego, I know) that I didn’t need it because it’s supposed to help blocked creativity, and I wasn’t blocked.

    Well.

    Skepticism. Yeah – there’s a section on that in this book. There’s also one on synchronicity. And I’m now a believer.

    I’m on Chapter 3 and I can already see the way I view myself as an artist, and creativity in general changing and morphing. The back cover touts the Artist’s Way as the ‘seminal book on the subject of creativity’ and it’s true. It really is.

    I have been trying to put my finger on what exactly it is, because I think part of the reason I resisted so long was that the actual SCOPE of this book was never adequately described to me. But it cannot be adequately described.

    It’s subtitle: ‘A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity’ doesn’t do it justice. I think the only way to describe it is to say that wherever you are on the road, you can get something from this book. I thought I didn’t need it, but then, when I finally gave in to peer pressure, I found I needed it more than I ever could have imagined. And I truly believe that no matter when I might have picked it up, I would have needed it then too, and taken something different from it.

    From an objective position, Ms. Cameron has an amazingly soothing and engaging voice. Her thoughts are well organized, thoroughly informative and totally applicable. In short, I think everyone should read this. I can’t think of a single person in my life who won’t take something away from it. And I know, just like all my friends told me (yeah, I know . . . I’m a stubborn arse, but you love me anyway), I will do it again and again, and take something new away each time. I’m officially on board now.

    Buy it. Read it. Live it.

    And that’s all I have to say about that.