Two things I wanted to mention today. Firstly the idea of beginners mind often associated with meditation. Secondly I wanted to mention the idea of creativity as play, as fun and perhaps how that connects with the inner child.
Beginners mind is the idea that each time you meditate you are starting again, without any expectations about how the experience will play out. Effectively starting as if you’ve never meditated before and are therefore not experiencing it through the expectation of what may have happened before. Hopefully that makes sense. I was thinking about this because now I’ve been journalling and painting for a few days, I started to wonder if I was repeating myself or working to a formula. For example with the morning pages, I seem to start with my immediate thoughts, everyday fairly mundane things, sometimes I link from there into unexpected diversions into something a little more insightful, then near the end of page 3, I fill the gap recounting a dream I had. I haven’t done this on purpose, does it matter if what I write is similar in its approach everyday? Will it limit any benefits of going through the process? Do I need to approach the task each day as if I’m starting from scratch with a beginners mind? These thoughts seem relevant to the painting too, does it matter if I repeat myself in my approach each time? Do I need to come up with something completely unique everyday? Or is it natural that I would have an approach or painting style that was in some way unique to me? Like handwriting, essentially the same in essence but can vary a little in style and appearance day to day? Then the panicky thought, is it even possible for me to paint or write something different everyday for a month? Do I even have that much creativity in me?
This leads me onto a related point, what are the rules I’m setting for myself? I think I don’t like routine and rules and yet I’m setting them for myself all the time. With the painting I’ve been doing two pages in the sketchbook everyday and until today, covering the whole page with paint. I don’t need to do this, I could paint one page or half a page, or several or paint on something else, cardboard, the canvas board I bought, I could paint over the top of existing paintings. And yet I seem more comfortable with an orderly plan of painting two facing pages in the sketchbook. Also I’m only using my set of acrylic paints, I’m not using any other media at the moment, is that a rule?
From rules to fun! I was re-listening to the interview with Flora Bowley from the Creativity as Spiritual Practice Summit and she talked about the element of play in her approach to intuitive painting. This was a mini-wake up call for me because I think I’ve been taking it all a bit too seriously since I set myself this task. I’ve been feeling more under pressure to meet the challenge I’d set myself than enjoying the process. The element of play, fun, enjoyment, exploration is also often linked with the idea of connecting with the inner child. This is something I first came across when I did Foundation course in Art Therapy. I find this a fascinating aspect of the creative process. I think this is an idea I might explore further another time.
So I tried to keep fun and playfulness in mind when I approached painting this afternoon. I chose yellow colours to start with, moving through the paint box to oranges and reds. I found myself painting petal shapes I the centre of the page in a way that made me think of daffodils. I found myself making more judgments about whether things looked ‘right’ which I think is a result of painting something more figurative or representative. On the facing page I used all the same colours and the same brush but applied the colour in an abstract way. I didn’t fill the pages with colour today and in a sense I feel the paintings aren’t finished, but I reached a point where I didn’t want to continue. I might go back to them tomorrow, I haven’t decided yet.
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