Don’t wait to create
By: Sally Fox
Tags: Consciousness, Creativity, Art, Aging

Playing with paint

Reclaiming a relationship with art after midlife

As we edge towards 2021, no one needs to be told that it’s been a dark season. I trust the light will be returning soon, but I don’t want to wait. I need color. I need to make art.

Last year, I would never have said, “I need to make art.” Any invitation to make art sent me running in the opposite direction. I was one of the millions of school children who decided, early on, that they had no talent for art and, as a result, they couldn’t “do” art. I made my decision in October 1961 in Mrs. Willoughby’s art class. I decided that the world was split up between those who could draw and make art (my friend Toni Squitieri) and the mediocre, untalented rest of us. Case closed.

I stuck to my story for close to sixty years.

But then this year, a lot start shifting. People started teaching who had never imagined they’d be forced to teach art online. That’s how I was able to take classes with my friend Dana Lynne Andersen of the Academy for Art and Consciousness based in Assisi, Italy. Dana had encouraged me to try her method and I was fascinated. Assisi was on my bucket list for a trip, someday, far in the future.

Dana has worked with thousands of us who “don’t do art” as well as with professionals who want to kindle a different relationship with their art. I decided that the risk of taking a class with her was minimal, given that no one would be able to see my work and I couldn’t compare myself with others.

I’ll fast forward the story. Suffice to say a door cracked open.

All it took was a shift from “Is this any good? to “Is this feeding my soul?” In a judgment-free environment, a part of me came out of hiding.

I no longer say “I don’t do art.”

My father had left some paints when he died. As I riffled through his tubes of acrylics I found magenta, aquamarine, orange, carmine red, cobalt, and black, which I mixed into jars for sloshy pours. My dad, who died twenty years ago, had been an amateur artist. Scratch amateur. Dad was an artist. How we demean ourselves with labels.

As I started working with his materials, my relationship with my father shifted–another story for another day.

In my first program with Dana, she eased the class into the creative process through movement and meditation. I felt the rhythm of my own body responding to music. With my Zoom audio off, I crooned and sang. Energy, buried deep within this year, opened up. I took that movement to the page.

I approached the paper which was to be my land of experiments. As I became involved in the creative process I used multiple sheets. I wasn’t going for a finished product. If the paper tore, well, that was part of the process, too.

I became entranced by the movement of colors traversing a wet page.

At the end of class, I was ready for more. I felt full, shifted, tired, and more awake. My intuition felt more alive. I paused to eat an orange, and my first bite (with a follow-up bite of chocolate) felt transcendent. I walked outside with my dogs, and, like them, I sniffed the air. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the fragrances of honeysuckle, lavender, and even the smell of the compost bin. My senses were dancing.

I could go on describing my experience and Dana’s class. If you want to taste Dana’s work, she’s offering a four-day program over the New Year’s holiday. (No worries, I’m not getting a commission here!)

Don’t wait to open the door to your creativity! That's what I really want to say. Fifty years is too long to wear a shirt that was always too small and constricting. Now is your best time to paint, sing, dance, write, or creatively fix your car.

Whoever said you weren't creative was flat out wrong.

The new year with its new hopes is a perfect time to take one small creative step.

Last year, I poured cobalt blue onto a piece of newsprint and the rest was history.

If you’re interested in expanding creativity and awareness in a time of uncertainty, please pop over to www.engagingpresence.com. And do check out Dana Lynne Andersen’s work at the Awakening Arts Academy.