Critic or Creative?

It’s easy to be a critic. Much harder to create something, especially in the storms of a critical mind. I had the chance to sit with my teacher who commented that critics usually wish they could be creative, but they stop at criticizing others’ creative efforts.

I listen to the Hidden Brain podcast where they recently covered a brain study about negativity bias. This study documented that negative thoughts arise in less than a second, while positive thoughts take 10-15 seconds to generate. Kinda comforting to know that there is some biology to my negativity bias. It helps me to understand that negative reactions may be the first out of the gate, but do not have to define my experience.

There can be a lot of negative interference inside me when I’m painting or playing music, especially at the beginning of a session. It’s like I have to weather a critical storm that will pass. After a period of sustained effort, focus, and taking action, I can get into a flow in the creative progress. Sometimes it is therapeutic for me to make and share things that my inner critic sees as sub-par, and feel the aftereffects which are usually a creative afterglow and quiet mind.

5 minute Buddha drawing

I believe that consumer culture (including screens, commercials, social media) plays on this negativity bias and trains our brains to be critical, to search for what we don’t have and crave these things. As a meditator and artist, I own my state of mind and remain open to how I can be creative and offer something positive to the world.

In it Deep

The only way out is through. I’m in it deep. Too deep to turn back.

I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in this new painting: a big nebula. Definitely in over my head. Not feeling like I have the skills for this one… yet. There is a fresh and expansive energy that comes with being in a little too deep.

Working in new territory, some days are like fumbling in the dark. It can be discouraging to see how little ground was covered after so many hours. Other days, it feels like connecting the dots and things seem to flow downhill.

I return to my work each day and keep working it out.

A Little Slow

After years of working on art, I realize I am not a genius. It’s ok to be a little slow. Sometimes the only way I can get something done is to do it slowly. With my cello students, we slow down the challenging parts until the rough edges wear down and things are more polished. If things are not clear, I can slow down and pay closer attention. The speeding up happens in a natural way when I’m ready.

Sometimes time slows down. Especially when doing something new. So many new neural connections happening - my brain is stretched! I can only bite off little pieces - an hour here, two hours there. I try to visit my work often throughout the week and keep the momentum.

Slow grows. There’s a slow accumulation of time and energy that builds into something great. Over time, the new and challenging things become skills at the ready. And the snowflake has become a rolling snowball gathering momentum. I look around my studio and feel grateful this body of work now exists!

How do you go slow and grow?

Dancing with your Dragon

This dragon hoards the treasure inside of me. My fears, the things that make me righteously angry, the negativity I project onto others - these become the dragon that stands between me and my enlightenment.

In mythology East to West, the dragon is an archetype of the most unreasonable and formidable foe. Dragon scales are impermeable except for … one weakness. Sometimes the hero needs close observation and a clear mind to see the one gap in a dragon’s armor. Other times the dragon’s scales have developed as protection against the blows of life. Once I lay down my defenses and show kindness, the dragon can remove the burden of their frightening suit of armor and be light and free. They don’t scare anyone anymore. Sometimes we befriend the dragon, sometimes we fool it long enough to get the treasure, sometimes it needs to be slayed.

These are some of my reflections as I work on this dragon from my recent painting. He guards the pearl of wisdom and dances around Vajrasattva, bodhisattva of purification in Tibetan Buddhism.

How do you dance with your dragon?

Grow with the Flow

Usually I don't get to decide what I'm painting. At least not all of it. A piece starts with an inspiration, images, feelings. Add to that time when I'm open and willing to work on it. Then in this luscious place, creativity takes root.

If I'm too stuck on things being a certain way, this can be a creative block. So, time to let go and grow with the flow.

It's a lot like our garden. Some veggies we planted did well, others struggled. And then there were the surprise guests! Carrots and kale, survivors just waiting for the right conditions to pop up. I could never have predicted what our harvest would be like.

The surprises are the best part. What has surprised you in your creative life?

Darkness in Perspective

Am I afraid of the dark? Or am I limited in my perspective?

The painting I am working on now is a Cosmic Green Tara. She is in the vastness of outer space, which appears to our eyes as a dark color.

The first stages of painting the background seemed like smoke in the darkness. I was nervous and resistant as this was the first time I had painted outer space. The deeper I worked into the painting, the more it developed into something new, beautiful and captivating.

The unknown, the things we can't see clearly, the things we don't have a context for yet - these often appear as darkness and we may feel an aversion to them. The darkness has more to do with our point of view and what is familiar to us. How often my world changes when I get to know someone or something better.

Passing Through

Like Meg from the movie Wrinkle in Time, my first reaction to life is often "no."

When I was in art school, we visited the artist Laura Mosquera in her Chicago studio. Check out her amazing work here. I remember being unable to appreciate her paintings because of the critical state of my mind.

For me, the journey of making art is learning to move through negative reactions to stay focused on my work. I have learned that my initial "no" response doesn't have to color what I think and do. It is like a hallway I walk through to enter the grand ballroom of my creativity and growth.

The Buddhist deity Vajrasattva embodies the energy of purification, helping us to be free of our negativity and karma. I have always felt a dancing rhythm in his posture. He holds the vajra, symbolic of diamond-like clarity and focus. In meditation and life, gazing at a deity like Vajrasattva is a powerful way to stay focused on our highest aspirations for our own enlightenment.

Mini meditation: Take a moment right now to breathe and relax in yourself. Release any negativity or heaviness, and allow your heart to open.

Vajrasattva drawing by Faith Stone with spray paint stencils by Gayatri

Epic in Increments

When I was new to making art regularly, a good friend asked me if I would make large paintings of my subjects. I had been making 12" x 16" paintings and I told her it felt like all I could handle at the time!

I had to get a handle on what I could handle, and then scale up from there.

Scaling up happens in a sweet spot somewhere between what I can handle and what is completely beyond me. Like the Buddha's insight  about the Middle Way listening to the musician on the river: "if you tighten the string too much it will break, if it is too loose it will make no sound."  

​I have a tendency to want the next level of epic growth RIGHT NOW! Damnit!  Forcing things can do more harm than good, breaking the string. I am learning that my growth feels more like a slow cooker.

Scaling up is also contagious. Hanging out with people who are bigger than I am in the areas I wish to expand. Maybe they'll give me a ride in their airplane...

I'm scaling up with a new painting: taking things larger, trying a few new techniques that are stabilized by methods I have been working on. Scaling up with a good foundation.

How do you scale up?

Spring Fever

Someone who loves me told me once that I always have a hard time in the spring. This gives me comfort and perspective when I get restless and think I need to make major life changes. My body can feel discombobulated with the change of the seasons. We are part of nature, and this major phase of change in the natural world affects us deeply.

In creative life, there are cycles as well. Wintertime is a more internal, like germinating the seed. Summer is outward and expansive, sharing the fruits of our work with others. The seasons are especially significant in my husband's pottery work: times for turning pots, glazing, firing and culminating in events for sales and community.

Since I enjoy a number of creative disciplines - painting, drawing, music, yoga, cooking – it helps to have something I’m working toward like, dare I say it, a clear deadline. A set time to share and connect with other people: a concert for music, a commission for a painting, a workshop for yoga, a meal for cooking.

There was a time when I put myself down or saw it as a shortcoming that I wasn’t always painting, or playing cello everyday, etc. The restlessness is often unused creative energy. Over time, I learned about myself that I work in projects. Each day is a chance to invest in part of my creative life. Everyone is unique in the way they work.

How are you growing your creative life this spring?