Shamanic Tools for Creativity Class 1

I did these 3 self portraits in the first class of Shamanic Tools for Creativity on Monday night at Otis Evening College/Extension,

This first one was with my right hand - which is my dominant hand. I did some measuring for the placement of the features etc.  I will done sitting on a stool in the ladies room in about 10 to 15 minutes.

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This second one was done with my left hand (my non-dominant hand).  The left hand was very weak and I really couldn't measure or make a straight line - all my hand would allow me was the crazy curvy lines.  It was a struggle - I wanted to cheat. But I loved what came out in the end.  I am softer and kinder with the left hand and that makes yogic sense to me because the left hand on the feminine side of the body. I spent 10 to 15 minutes on this one.

The last one I made in the classroom.  The teacher said be really free with this one.  Like you are in kinder garden and use your non dominant hand.  So I got out a big sharpie and started to draw looking at myself in my IPAD.

I am going to do more non-dominant hand drawing in the future.  I love how much more fun the untrained hand seems to be,

Distortion of the non-dominant hand shows us the subconscious.  Non dominant hand shows us character and creativity.

It is important to connect with both sides of the brain.

CLASS NOTES

- We started the class drumming to connect to spirit.
- Fu-Ding Cheng is the teacher and he referred to his teachings as spiritual Kung Fu
- He said our greatest contributions in life come from our deepest wounds.
- He mentioned the 2 main totems we will be studying are 1) the Art of Dreaming and 2) the Art of Stalking.
- We dream of a planet/plane/plan ... we want to wake up... we are God but we have to wake up because we dream we aren't
- Jump through the Sun Ritual
- Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
- Illustrators are those who illustrate something.
- Art doesn't illustrate something it embodies something.
- How do you protect your violent flame of creativity in a rough and tumble world- 2
- How not to lose your center - stay centered - stay in the place of the most sublime part of you.
- It's important to fine tune where you put your chi (conservation of energy)
- Your greatest art is your own life
- Put your heart on the throne
- Always ask yourself is this coming from the heart or ego
- Don't let your head take over what your heart has to say
- Let the heart be on the throne but reason be the 1st prime minister

Clarity of Intent
- Know what you want. Go for what you really want.
- Connect and attune to spirit from your heart
- Spiritual Mana heals us
- Assemblage Point
- Detachment from outcomes
- Heal your own wounds (not blaming but seeing what is)


Art of Dreaming
- Seeing energy. Seeing your place in the cosmic universe,

Shaman
- anyone who has the ability to go in the spiritual realm and access to spiritual
- like jazz artists and improve artists
- Shamanism appreciates that you are going to express it in your own way

Priests
- channels into existing forms

Discover Your Identity

“Identity cannot be found or fabricated but emerges from within when one has the courage to let go.”
― Doug Cooper, Outside In

Van Gogh - Self Portrait

We all have beliefs about who we are and what we can do.  But as humans we also have enormous capabilities and capacities beyond what we think is possible.  Growing up in the 80s one of my favorite TV shows was the Incredible Hulk.  In this show Dr. Banner was consumed by the idea that we can tap into a superhuman strength when we need it. He was also extremely distressed that he could not tap in this strength when it was needed to save his wife.  He creates the Hulk in an experiment to understand this primal super human strength. The Hulk becomes a curse for him and it was the product of an accident during his experimentation.

Incredible Hulk TV show of my youth

The power to tap into our tremendous potential comes from our identity.  Our identity is where we ask the questions: how do we define ourselves and what do we believe we can achieve? Often we have all kinds of ideas about what we can’t do and why we can’t do it and they are simply not true.  When I practice yoga, sometimes I come up with elaborate stories about why I can’t do a pose: my thighs are too big, my arms are too short, etc. And then months or years later, I may get to that expression of the pose (that I had previously deemed impossible) and I realize my story just wasn’t true; it was in fact just a story.

Self Portrait - Artemisia Gentilischi

Identity is the most powerful aspect of the human personality. Once we define our identity we are determined to remain consistent with our definition no matter how limiting the definition may be. If we want to transform ourselves we have to be ready and willing to expand our identity.  We can expand our identities by building new, empowering sets of beliefs, letting go of our stories and being open to all possibilities.  A great way to do this is by doing yoga, meditation, reading, journaling and exposing ourselves to new ideas and experiences.

Self Portrait - Artemisia Gentilischi

The Key Principles of Identity
1.  Identity determines our actions. We act according to our views of who we are—sometimes these views are accurate and sometimes they are not.

2. Once we know who we are, we must try to accept ourselves. If we attempt to live our lives in a way that’s inconsistent with who we are we will live from a place of frustration, stress and disappointment. We need to embrace our  needs, desires, strengths, fears, values and beliefs in order to tap into our tremendous potential.
3. Don’t maintain the illusion that a single behavior decides who they really are.
Sometimes we experience moments of anger, anxiety and/or defeat, and that result in saying or doing things that are inconsistent with who we are.  These Inconsistent behaviors are not parts of our overall identity but instead momentary lapses. We should investigate these behaviors, forgive ourselves and move on.
4. When you take responsibility, you restore your identity. When we create unfavorable or hostile situations, we should take action to repair any harm that we may have caused and again forgive ourselves and move on.
5. Expand your identity by doing something that is out of character.
We grow when we try things we might find strange or out of the ordinary. It is the because  these activities are uncomfortable to us that we have the possibility to learn more about ourselves.  It is by doing these new things that we can expand our identity and grow.
6. Our personal identities are always evolving. We have the power to reinvent ourselves at any moment. We can create new, empowered, expansive identities that are consistent with our beliefs and desires if we want to.

Frida Kahlo - Self Portrait

EXCAVATION QUESTIONS
Write of list of your likes and dislikes.  Write a list of things that are “out of character” that you might consider doing to shake yourself up a little and help to expand your identity.

Cindy Sherman - Self Portrait

The Painting Experience - Stewart Cubley - Your art is part of the big painting of your life

I took the Painting Experience Workshop up at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino Last weekend.

It was an amazing workshop.

I read the book a few weeks before I did the workshop.  I couldn't put it down. It is called "Life, Paint and Passion: Reclaiming The Magic of Spontaneous Expression.

3rd painting

 The book had great quotes:
p.xx "What is reflected in the forms, images and colors is the by-product of a journey that has taken place on an inner landscape. The real painting has been created on the canvas of the psyche, the true artistic product is the personal transformation that has taken place within the painting experience itself."

art is the pulse of the universe

p.6 "As children we were taught how to do everything: how to read, how to study, how to be polite. We  have been bombarded with the right way to do things. So now we are approaching art and we think we should know how to do it. Yet art is the only thing that we should not know how to do! Art is the place not to know.  To create is to move into the unknown-to move into the mystery of yourself, to have feeling, to awaken buried perceptions, to be alive and free without worrying about the result"

added more paper for the roots

p. 12"If you wait for inspiration, you may wait a ling time. The more you wait, the more you think and get tangled in the tight net of success and failure. You do not need an idea to paint, you need only a brush.  If you do not know what to do, just paint!"

p. 16-17 "Talent is not a gift given to only a few. Talent is like the sun shining outside the window: it is there for all of us-all you have to do is pull back the curtains and let it in. Talent comes from openness, integrity, simplicity, and the courage to feel and take risks.  It is part of being human... Talent is universal. You dip into that source to your heart's content. Everyone is good at what comes to them spontaneously.  If nothing is put in your way, talent will meet you there."

1st painting

p.51 "If you want to explore the unknown, intuition is your best guide When intuition passes through you, it has no choice. At every moment it has only one possibility; what needs to be done. Like a flower, it has only one way to grow. The mind, then, does not spend each moment considering possibilities, but rather enjoys watching the garden bloom.Life gives us the seed: the artist's job is to make sure it will grow."

p.71 "The unfolding of the unexpected becomes the energy that drives you. You discover how thirsty you are for exploration without analysis. You feel strangely at home in a place you can't define. You are truly creating."

2nd painting

The purpose of the painting process is to unclog this channel of intuitive action and allow it to operate in every aspect of our life.

p.74 " To be present with each new development in the painting and to experience it fully is infinitely more lifec-hanging than any interpretation."

p.81 "If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you.  Your intuition, is like a sensitive friend.  If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent. When you paint for process, you don't decide what is and is not acceptable.  The gift of spontaneous expression has been given to transcend that choice, to open you to what you do not know, cannot predict or expect."

p.97 "self-discovery is about opening to the mystery-knowing less about yourself, not more. when you forget yourself and follow the movement of images, forms and colors as they emerge, that is true discovery."

p.104 "Explanations are an escape from feeling: assertions distract us from being in the midst of our present experience, from moving step by step on new ground.  The drama that's on the painting truly does not matter.  What matters is what we are underneath it, and this can be experienced, not explained."

p.168 "The pot is not the water it contains.  The river is not what it carries. Why identify with the driftwood that the river washes onto its shores? What you really are lives beyond any definitions or frame.  It is uncapturable execept for the spirit, which appears in the life of an honest stroke of paint, whatever its content."

p.174 "Remember that each experience is part of the journey toward yourself."

p.177 "You do not use art as a means to an end but as a way t inhabit and explore the present...Your art is part of the big painting of your life. You are on your own, standing by yourself in the middle of creation.  In the beauty of that aloneness, and in how you respond to it, you will find your passion."

self portrait - grissaille

Added color (their is a shadow in this picture, I need to retake it later). It looks a little more like me I think.

I smoothed out the head a little

Worked on it somemore Wednesday late afternoon. Lifted the nose because I thought filtrum was too small.

Working on the next layer of my self portrait on Tuesday night.

Painting in the Style of the Venetian Masters

I am on class three in an extension class at UCLA called "Painting in the Style of the Venetian Masters" taught by Tom Garner.

Here are some exercises we did last week.

This is a self portrait we started in class today, I will try to get a better photo tomorrow so you can see how it has progressed. There is a yellow ochre scubbled underpainting and then burnt umber layer and then white highlights. I wonder how it is going to turn out.