Painting and Playing: A New Practice

I’ve been painting every day for the last week. I felt called to start this daily practice after my last training, because every time I attend a 5-day breathwork workshop, I face my inner critic on the mat telling me that I must not be doing it right. It takes two breathwork sessions every time to work my way back again into my natural self. (Even though I love it, and it feels like ALL I want to do.) Off the mat, at the art table, I am less hounded by that voice of self-doubt. It’s there, but not as loud. Maybe it is because I have no art training or experience that I seem to have fewer expectations of myself in that arena. Although I do encounter the shadow of my blocked self-expression EVERY time I come to a Dreamshadow training, the result is consistently liberating. I want to expand the sense of creative freedom that is growing in me. So now, I am taking an opening, and I am inviting myself to sit in it each day, and to paint without judging.

Sometimes it feels great. But surprisingly often, I don’t find any meaning in it, or even like it. I get frustrated sometimes that I don’t have more pleasure in the process–it’s not getting me anywhere, and that feels bad. But then I take a mental step back and remind myself, “It’s not supposed to be anything”.  I open to the space of the paper and tell the paints that I have no designs on them. There is relief in that choice. The paper seems to appreciate the freedom. I am not trying to control things. They can be whatever they will be. And I let things happen.

Sometimes a feeling of what I am painting guides me, a sense of something I can’t see, but can almost imagine. At these times I don’t focus on the brush, but rather on the periphery of where it is painting. That is where the image is coming from. Sometimes I cross my eyes a little, too, because I can find it better when I am not focusing too hard on anything.

Sometimes there’s no intention or direction, but as I keep adding colors or marks, a form will begin to appear accidentally. Hey, that looks like an otter! Now it turns into a bear. Once, my squiggles grab the last layer of paint in a surprising pattern, and a snake appears. Wow, it created itself! These are “happy accidents”.

With my mandalas at a workshop or my play paintings at home, I often look back at them later and I honestly like what I see, to my surprise. I don’t know why. The colors, the shapes say something. There’s movement. There is something there that speaks to me.