Musings on making, on contemplating and creating, on curiosity and wonderment – all the fruits that make up the salad of an artist’s days in the studio.

courting creativity
To court creativity is to make a conscious, open, orientation towards Life’s infinite capacity. 
Here are my seven fail-safe strategies, gathered up with the help of students and co-travellers on the via creativa.

curiosity and wonderment
Curiosity. Wonderment. Amazing that one’s via creativa could be summed up in just two words.
This illustrated essay is my version of a curriculum vitae; it maps the twists and turns of my creative path and reminds me of my life-long commitment to ‘beginner’s mind.’

salmon-mind and stream-ing
Invitations – via courses, retreats and workshops – to “learn how to be in creative flow” are as ubiquitous as those promising “breakthrough experiences of awakening.”  But can creativity be taught?  Can “awakening” ever be an experience?

art and awakening
Art and awakening are two words that are hot potatoes for some reason, and without signing up for the task I seem to have had a default preoccupation with both concepts all my life.  This little essay tries to express what I’ve learned, or rather what I’ve unlearned…

via creativa
My version of the via creativa isn’t a well-signposted, paved pathway. Actually, it’s not even a path at all.  As I use the term here, the via creativa represents the dynamic journey itself, the process of meeting unending change. The journey unfolds beneath one’s feet as one wonders about and explores the possibilities presented by life.  Life as-it-is, here and now, in this very moment.

the enigma of creativity
Creativity is an enigma. Trying to find it, to track it down within the landscape of the alphabetized, is as impossible as trying to locate the mirage of a ‘self’. It’s always hiding just the other side of words, just beyond articulation, and yet – like the ‘self’ – evidence of its workings spreads out across the terrain. Creativity is mysterious, and like all good mysteries it’s something that most people claim to be interested in…

wider wonderment; deepening devotion
So here’s the truth: the crux of my work is devotion. Whatever happens in the studio is an act of devotion to the innate Unknowable. How could I not be in awe of the mystery that pours through these hands, this mind, when given unconditional permission, when not impeded by my own small visions and versions of what real art should look like?

---

empty canvas : wondering mind
My e-books – a series of nine, which you can download for free:
The empty canvas : wondering mind e-books invite us to relax into the wisdom of not-knowing.  Of playing.  Of exploring and experimenting.  Of finding out for oneself what is possible when all traces of the artist or any other version of the self have taken a holiday, leaving the playground free.  Just to see what might happen…

---