More, please

I’ve discovered a new truth: art spawns creativity. You would think it would be the other way around, wouldn’t you – creativity spawns art? And that’s true too. But I was recently surprised to find it worked in the opposite direction: a simple evening learning to paint generated myriad creative pursuits born from the sheer desire to experience more of that more often.

What did I experience exactly? Well, before I tell you that story, I want to tell you this one:

In the days following my attempt to artfully depict a scene on canvas at Painting With A Twist, I was inspired to do all of the following and more:

·      subscribe to the Creative Pep Talk podcast and listen to a couple episodes

·      find an article listing creative exercises and begin incorporating them into my morning routine

·      re-commit to Morning Pages from my Artist’s Way days

·      design a creative space in my bedroom

·      sign up for the “Shut Up and Write” meet-up at Wolverine Farm Letterpress

·      resolve to create one new recipe and a playlist of new music each week this year

·      and go on an Artist’s Date (another gem from the Artist’s Way) with my son before he headed back to college. This was a blissful day involving visits artsy cafes, bookstores, artisan markets and hidden attic spaces in Old Town Fort Collins.

I also got creative with the age-old question, “What can we all do together that everyone in the family might actually enjoy?” This took us, for the first time, to a Sports Bar & Grill on a random Wednesday evening for 3 rounds of pool. We were, admittedly, pretty terrible (I last played pool in the ‘80s), but we all laughed and groaned dramatically as we scratched and knocked each other’s balls into unintended pockets and celebrated wildly when one of us accomplished a shot we actually set out to make.

All of that from an investment of 35 dollars and 2 hours spent brushing acrylic paint on canvas following an instructor’s direction. How did such a minor, low-barrier quest inspire so much more? It was not, I assure you, that I was surprised and delighted to find that I had a brilliant artist hidden inside me! Here’s how it actually went down:

From the time I walked in the door of this little hole-in-the-wall studio tucked into the corner of a nondescript strip mall in a seemingly random part of town, I felt like an artist-in-waiting. I pulled a stiff, paint-splattered apron over my head and tied it around my waist to protect my clothes but also, however unwittingly, in order to put on my artist persona. I breathed in the paint fumes and turpentine-soaked scent of brushes and sponges, was handed a light weight, pristine white canvas and was pointed toward my stool and easel in a row of 5, and a class of 30.

Propped on my stool wearing my artist’s smock, sitting in front of my blank canvas with 4 colors of paint, and two brushes at the ready, as my friends began to take their places and the room filled up completely on a random Saturday at the end of December, I felt so thankful for two hours to do something as frivolous as painting a scene called “Lucid Reflections” in this artsy space.

As the instructor began to describe and demonstrate how to mix paint colors, apply them to the brush and the canvas to create the background of the scene, and then subtly cranked up the volume of an eclectic playlist while we tried our hands at it, everything else seemed to fall away – all the expectations of the holidays, all the effort of gift buying and receiving, all the broken routines, the ready-or-not ramp up to a new year, the hard work of staying healthy surrounded by sickness in cramped public spaces, the sleeping on planes, the living out of suitcases, the planning of events and even the mundane tasks awaiting me at home.

I soon discovered that I could sing and paint at the same time – in fact, I couldn’t NOT sing and paint at the same time. Taylor Swift, Elle King, Johnny Cash and CCR – a bizarre combo that somehow felt just right and enhanced the whole experience.

 It wasn’t all as easy as that, though, and I didn’t catch everything like it was second nature. When the instructor directed us to turn our canvas upside-down to make the reflection of the mountains, she completely lost me. Years prior, I’d learned to turn my page upside-down to trick my brain when sketching something challenging so that I would be drawing only the lines I saw, not the lines my brain “knew” were there. This didn’t seem necessary for a reflection, which should have been a simple mirror image below the original, but that’s the way we were told to do it. Needless to say, my reflection isn’t very reflective, despite my efforts to fix it before the fast-drying paint had its permanent way. 

I’m only just now realizing I never appropriately mounted my canvas on my easel -- I just placed it vertically on the bottom wooden bar -- which is why it kept moving when I got aggressive with my brush strokes. Duh. But I was already lost in the moment by the time I noticed it jiggling.

My moon isn’t the roundest moon (let’s pretend the paint bled after I applied it, shall we?!) and its reflection is a little off-kilter, too. The white waves were meant to be subtle and should have been applied with a lighter hand, but they came near the beginning and were my first use of the smaller brush before I knew how to simply employ the tip rather than a regular brush stroke.  

All that said , the experience was never about the piece, the outcome, the thing on the canvas. It was about the act of creating, of being creative and doing that in a new way surrounded by friends and strangers who were equally enthused and interested in becoming artists for the evening. It was two hours of total departure from the daily routine. For me, it was engaging and consuming and light and challenging all at the same time.

And… I wanted more. The time flew by. I honestly think I could’ve sat on that uncomfortable stool messing with my canvas for another 2 hours with no antsy-ness, no thought whatsoever of all that I should be doing. And here’s the thing: It’s a rare leisure activity that, after 2 hours, doesn’t leave me fidgeting or bemoaning my lack of productivity.

But the simple pleasure I derived from being in a creative atmosphere and the sensations of doing art (the sights, the smells, the strokes, oh my!) felt something like a long-lost memory. And made me lose track of time. And brought the realization that this type of experience – sensory, thoughtful, synergetic – was not only sorely lacking in my life, but also, quite mercifully, didn’t have to be.

Jack London said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” I’ve felt that several times this week following my seemingly inconsequential painting quest. Must. Have. More. Inspiration. So, I’ve begun hunting down those things that inspire, that cultivate that experience, that escape; beating them into submission, dragging them back home by their hair so I can make them my own.

Yes, that’s a bit dramatic, but… heck, let’s get dramatic! Drama is an art form, too, after all. And couldn’t we all use a little more art in our lives?! I know I could.