Artist Way Week-1

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." 

-Joseph Chilton Pearce

Here are the notes from this week's Artist's Way.

So I did say that I would blog on Wednesday about the Artist's way. Well that isn't exactly what has happened so far. I am only meeting with my friend every other week. She is out of town this week so we will pick up again soon. I will most likely end up blogging every other Wednesday at the very least. Here are the exercises and material that we have covered so far.

Often times when we are growing up we don't get the support/encouragement that we need to continue creating. So we may go through life not ever tapping into our creativity. We may also find ourselves becoming friends, dating, or marrying people we could consider artists. She calls this a shadow artist

"Artists love other artists. Shadow artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright.Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist-hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch."
Julia Cameron

She would say in order to come out of the shadows we must nurture our artist within. This is why she has created the morning pages and the artist dates. It is in these times we are able to get back in touch with that part of ourselves. When we begin creating we won't turn out master pieces and that is ok we are only getting started. We have to be careful because it is in these beginning projects that the shadow artist will try to discourage us to continue on.

"Judging your early artist efforts is artistic abuse." Julia Cameron

She says it is our core negative beliefs that keep us in the shadows and keep us scared. She calls these negative beliefs, blurts. One of the first assignments is to write down these blurts. Here are some of my examples:

-I don't have good enough ideas
-I'm not an artist
-I haven't had any training
-I will never be as good as my brother
-People will laugh

(It was really scary how quickly these thoughts came to mind.)

Take these negative thoughts and turn them into positive ones.

The other assignments that she gave are:
List 3 old enemies of your creative self-worth. Be specific. She states "Your historic monsters are the building blocks of your core negative beliefs." Julia Cameron
Select a story from your horror story hall of fame. Give details of the room, the people who were there,the way you felt, whatever comes to mind. Then write a letter on your behalf to that person.
Then list 3 champions of your creative self worth. Then write a detailed story about the encouragement. Write a thank you note to that person.
Take your artist for a 20 minute walk, using your senses to notice all that is around you.
This study requires a lot of thinking and writing, but it is so great to see what comes to the surface.

Prayer: God show me the ways in which you have endowed me with creativity.