Week 1 — Collage: 'What's Up?'

(Note: This post is about a formal Workshop that was held in the past. For information about the ongoing weekly Book Study at the New Orleans Healing Center, click here.)

Our six-week Artist's Way workshop began Tuesday, and I've decided to start a blog about my own activities, insights and growth during the course of the workshop. If you want to follow along with us from a distance, please do. You can feel free to post your breakthroughs in the comments section below. I'll be doing this workshop again, so there will be more opportunity for long-distance participation. On the other hand, now is a good time.

We are covering two chapters in the The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity each week. This week we will work with chapters 1 and 2, which are titled: "Recovering a Sense of Safety" and "Recovering a Sense of Identity." In these chapters, we want to protect our emerging creativity and to get more in touch with our own creative impulse.

To begin the first session, we each introduce ourselves. There are six students in the class, plus me, the facilitator. We are meeting upstairs in a charming old building in the French Quarter. The room has a large table, exposed brick walls and a balcony overlooking Esplanade Avenue. We can hear live music from Checkpoint Charlies on the next corner, and we hear urban life all around.

It seems to me, I share, that each time we attend a growth-producing event like this, we have something "up" for us. There is some facet of our psyche that is ready for review, for change, for a shift.

Meeting each of the participants is always a thrill. We discover a lot in common. For this group, I'd say there is a lack of confidence in our art, our right to be artists, our right to live authentic lives.

I share how I have been in intense personal growth for about 30 years. Lately, after amping up my involvement with the Artist's Way, I've seen my own progress zoom at a high speed. My biggest challenge is letting my being adjust to the new productivity, achievements, happiness and connections with the world.

I explain to the group that each week will be the same format: 1) Check In; 2) Artistic Exercise; 3) Written Exercise; 4) Artist Share; 5) Check Out.

Artistic Exercise — For our artistic exercise, I ask the students to make to collages on facing pages. On the left side will be what is "up" for them today. What is the big issue up for review? What does it look like? Feel like? That exercise takes 15 minutes.

Then, I ask them to make another collage on the right-side page to show what having the "up" issue resolved would look like. How would life be to have that thing resolved? To have moved on from the issue? That exercise also gets 15 minutes.

I won't go into the issues of my students, as that is strictly confidential. For myself, I see in a magazine a photo of a woman (right) who looks stunned, confused, off-balance. And I realize that is what is up for me, the feeling of being a little in shock from all my current growth and movement. On the right side, I picture a life more content, with enjoyment of music and food and not such a struggle. One by one, we show our collages and tell our stories. It is amazing.

Written Exercise — The written exercise is straight from the book The Artist's Way, on page 38, and it consists of making two lists of those who influenced our artistic confidence earlier in life. One list is for what author Julia Cameron calls our "monsters," those who shut down our creativity, and the second list is for our "champions," those who encouraged our creativity. These are not necessarily good or bad people. We are just trying to connect with what is good for us and what is not good for us. Ultimately, we need to move closer to those people and situations that give us creative strength, and move away from those people and situations that make us weak.

The final part of the written exercise is drawing a "circle of safety." That is from page 56 in The Artist's Way. We put our name in the center and with us we write the names of people  and elements of our lives that are good for us, and outside the circle we put those things and people that are a threat to our emerging creativity. I wish this part of the exercise could have been given more time. (One note: There are many, many tasks and exercises in the book. It's impossible to do them all in one workshop. However, the more we do, the greater the liberation from what is holding us back.)

Artist Share — Each week one participant will share her art. I took this first slot and sent around a sheet for others to sign up for subsequent weeks. The first thing I share is where I came from. Earlier in life, I was very obese and shut down. You can see a picture of me here. Then I share a piece of art I made years ago when I was a juried member of the Santa Barbara Art Association. I sold that piece (shown above) and it is now in a private collection. 

Today I am working with pieces of plexiglass and other types of sheet resin. This continues my love of collage with geometric shapes, but in a more solid form. There's something thrilling about drilling into plexiglass. I can't explain it. But as I've been telling myself lately: Don't explain, don't complain. I share photos from my computer of a piece I'm working on that will soon hang at the Fair Grinds Coffeehouse. It is made of plexiglass that I got from Freecycle.com, and it's embellished with recycled Mardi Gras beads and symbols of New Orleans. I'm feeling very passionate about using recycled materials in my art. The centerpiece has Scrabble pieces that spell out Fair Grinds. This is homage to the Scrabble games that take over Fair Grinds every Monday. I will be hanging the piece this weekend and will take more photos of it in its eventual home.

Below you see a photo of this current work on my table as I finish it up. I drill holes to wire smaller pieces together, and the wooden block you see at the top is a backer to prevent my drilling into the oak table.

Homework — During the six weeks of the course, we are to use these three tools: 1) The Morning Pages, which are three pages of longhand stream of consciousness writing each morning; 2) Artist's Date, a weekly adventure we take ourselves on to nurture our inner artist, and 3) Walking, we are to walk at least 20 minutes out in the world to clear our minds. (I'll be sharing more on these tools in coming posts.)

Check Out — It seems like the two hours has passed too quickly. As we do our check out, many express excitement and trepidation at what is to come. Many express gratitude to be in the room with like-minded emerging artists. I totally agree.

Comments

[Marjorie Ford Johnson]

OMG Kathy, the idea of a blog on the workshop is inspired. And I had never seen the "before" picture - would never have believed that is you.

My morning pages alone are moving me forward right now. My best to everyone in the workshop. I remember Checkpoint Charlie so I am following along in spirit as I envision right where you all are.

[Kathy Price-Robinson]

That's awesome, Marjorie! You are following along in Pittsburgh! I so agree that the morning pages move us forward. It's amazing what comes out. Welcome to our process, Marjorie!