Unleashing Creativity: The Artist's Way Basic Tools
““Art is born in attention. Its mid-wife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details.” ”
I am reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist's Way and participating in the 12-week course to become a better artist and writer. Every week, I will summarize my reading and experience with the course, but first, I wanted to highlight helpful points from the pre-chapter, The Basic Tools. In this section Cameron presents the two tools we will use for "creative recovery": Morning Pages and The Artist's Date.
Morning Pages - Three pages of longhand writing strictly stream of consciousness.
The whole point is to get your hands moving and your thoughts flowing. Cameron says you can write three pages and put them in an envelope or write them in a notebook, but don't leaf back through (the discipline this will require!), because the point is not to sound smart or be “reflective” its to get the petty and childish out in a meditative flow.
My takeaways:
Defeat the Censor!
"We are victims of our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, The Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as truth."
“Make this a rule: always remember that your Censor's negative opinions are not the truth.”
Morning Pages Are Non-negotiable
The basic idea is to dispel the myth of motivation and move toward the real precursor to creative success: consistency.
Morning Pages Map Our Interior -
Cameron believes that writing our thoughts shows us ourselves and can cause transformation. "using them (morning pages), the light of insight is coupled with the power for expansive change. It is very difficult to complain about a situation morning after morning after morning, month after month, without being moved to constructive action. The pages lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions.
Morning Pages Are For Everyone.
Yes, I am calling this practice #WritingWednesday, but that's mostly because I'm a writer. That is my chief mode of creative expression. However, Cameron insists that the innovative practice of morning pages and going through this book does not have to be just for the writers but can be anyone wanting to go on a creative journey.
The Artist Date - A block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed toward nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist… an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist.
A Rule To Live By
“Make this a rule: always remember that your Censor's negative opinions are not the truth.”
My takeaways:
Treat Yo Self
Cameron insists that the artist date is an act of self-love, a way to pamper one's artist and nurture one's inner child in solitude.
Pay attention to the resistance
"Commit yourself to a weekly artist's date and then watch your killjoy side try to wriggle out of it. Cameron encourages you to push through the resistance and recognize it as a fear of self-intimacy, an avoidance of a relationship with our inner selves as we escape into the external pressures of adulthood. As a two on the enneagram, this hit me like a ton of bricks.
Fill The Well
Cameron suggests that these dates be about what interests you and sparks joy and fills you with wonder. She encourages that students seek "Mystery over mastery."
Commit
Lastly, she asks you to sign a creativity contract IN BLOOD! Just kidding. But the contract is pretty intense.
"I __(Janine), understand that I am undertaking an intensive, guided encounter with my own creativity. I commit myself to the twelve-week duration of the course…"
I am excited and intimidated. What do you think about Morning Pages if you can't commit to the entire blood oath of the Artist's Way? I'm curious to hear from you!
