The Artist’s Way - 3 Key Things I’ve Learned

My well-worn copy of The Artist’s Way and workbooks I’ve used for Morning Pages. It doesn’t need to be fancy!

I’m excited to be going through The Artist’s Way for the fourth time, and for the second time I’ll be facilitating a group, starting next month. The Artist’s Way is an incredible programme created by Julia Cameron almost 30 years ago as a way to discover and recover your creative self.  Over 12 weeks you complete readings, exercises and tasks to bring you back to the endlessly inventive child you were, or open yourself up to see the possibilities in introducing yourself to creativity.

The book first appeared to me just when I needed it, when my creativity felt at a low ebb and I wanted to kick it up several notches. That’s the first lesson I learned:

1. Serendipity is not as accidental as the Oxford English Dictionary would have you believe.

 “Serendipity:  making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.  The word was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754.” 

Side note:  I love that the OED looks for the first known use of words.  I recommend reading, “The Surgeon of Crowthorne”, published as “The Professor and the Madman” in the US, by Simon Winchester, if you are interested in learning about the making of the OED. Yes, I am just that exciting. I’m a literature major, I can’t help myself.

I think that a lot of what appears to be serendipity is a matter of observing, and seeing something you might have missed at another time. You might pass by the same thing hundreds of times, and only become aware of it when you’re aware of your need. But how do you start to really see things?

Observation, awareness, and curiosity open you up to seeing what you’ve missed before, or discovering even more when you encounter something new. Being aware and observant comes naturally to some, and it is a learned skill for others. A skill that pays incredible dividends. The exercises throughout the 12 week programme create opportunities to hone these skills. Yes, you have to work at it.

2. Untrue:  Only Capital “A” Artists are Creative

There are people who have very successful careers as Artists who have precious few original thoughts. There are also people who have never picked up a paintbrush, a block of clay or suffered over a keyboard, who have more naturally creative brains than established Artists.  It’s HOW you think, not what your title is, self imposed or not, that determines whether you’re creative. Creative thinking is the ability to look at things and make connections, to imagine something new - inventiveness.  

You’re not going to convince me that mathematicians, scientists, and certainly accountants don’t have that ability, however serious they may appear. It’s not tied to dressing in flowing clothes of bright colours, or owning exclusively black clothing, for that matter. It’s not tied to writing a book a year or having a well established art practice, though it might be. Sometimes, creativity is hidden away, or may have been actively stifled in a child, leading to a life of frustration.

My mother was one of those people, and I wrote so much about her suppressing her natural creative expression that I’ve decided she deserves a post of her own, for another day. Suffice it to say that her far-too-short life was devoted to being the perfect mid-century housewife and mom at the expense of her creative dreams. She was a wonderful mom and our house was always immaculate but there was a feeling of frustration about her through all the joy and laughter, which makes me sad for her. I promised myself that I would do whatever I could to support my creative self - even at the expense of a tidy house. Sacrifices had to be made, and I’d rather spend my time playing. 

3.  There’s a reason they call it an Art Practice

Now, I knew this already - Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers - The Story of Success about the need for 10,000 hours of task repetition to achieve World-Class Mastery, among so many other works about improving anything you do. It’s not World-Class Mastery that we’re striving for here, though. It’s a change in thinking - a release of internal blocks, a shushing of that irritating inner voice that tells you you can’t or aren’t good enough to __________. Once you’ve decided you want to find your creative self, it still requires repetition to change the neural pathways that have fought you for so long. Julia Cameron has discovered techniques that worked well for her, and that she shares. One of them, doing three pages of longhand writing EACH morning before your brain has truly engaged, does change the way, and what you think. Getting yourself comfortable with the idea of you as a creative being takes practice. Once you’re willing to allow yourself the fun and freedom of creativity, you can take that in any direction you choose and start that 10,000 hours toward World Class Mastery if you wish. Or just revel in the way you truly observe the world, seeing things that you’d not realized were there all along.

Shoot me a message or an email at veronica@veronicaannemartin.ca if you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming Artist’s Way programme, starting March 7th.