How Art Can Change Your Life

You feel it only after, when you’ve broken out of the trance. For the last hour or so you’ve been “somewhere else,” lost in the moment, not worried about ANYTHING. Also, you weren’t worrying about the painting, the image, the tools, or “getting it right.” None of that. You’re spent, exhausted, charged up, and refreshed all at the same time. What’s more, you sort of think what you’ve created maybe isn’t that horrible.

Sound technique helps, of course. But anxiety about the outcome, overthinking in general – those are the bad mental habits that derail paintings. They throw us off from the reason we wanted to paint something in the first place. And the only way to kick them is to get out of your own way – which means STOP THINKING and DO.

Many artists come to painting because of the desire for more meaning in our lives. Some us come, sometimes, to sense that as a culture our days are largely spent in fractured pointlessness. Art can help, by reconnecting us to wholeness and meaning, to the unfolding of a stronger, more conscious and fulfilling way of being in the world, even if only for brief snatches of time – ah, but what blissful time!

Just thing of what an almost miracle it is: Accumulating ever more glimpses of real beauty and meaning actually end up changing real lives for the better.

CW Mundy, Dancer Reflections

Often when a plein air painter goes into a field or a forest clearing, consciously or not they’re looking for that sense of sudden clarity, the heightened feeling of being present, right here, connected, and alive. It’s an inspired feeling, an uplifting sense of the worthiness of life – call it the sacred if you like – which sparks the desire to paint.

“Only if we are still enough inside and the noise of thinking subsides,” says New Age writer Eckhart Tolle, “can we become aware that there is a hidden harmony here (in nature), a sacredness, a higher order in which everything has its perfect place and could not be other than what it is and the way it is.”

Here’s the thing though. It’s a huge challenge is to prioritize this perception and keep it close during the process of creation. Doubts and other mind games are inevitable. Even professional artists have multiple moments of distraction and uncertainty during the course of a painting. The pro understands this and works with it.

Clyde Aspevig, “Big Horn Basin” 12×16” oil on board

The professional artist gets out of her own way by:

only half-listening and only sometimes acting on the inner critic’s constant chatter. Instead, the artist pushes past doubt by constantly recalling and prioritizing the end result – the feeling to be conveyed in the work.
If she finds herself getting stuck, she’ll mentally step away and work on another part of the painting, where it’s still possible to let feeling – the original impulse – guide her hand.

Connectedness to nature requires a radical act of acceptance and a recognition that one is part of a larger whole. The same thing goes for painting.

“You cannot understand it through thought,” Tolle says. “but you can sense it when you let go of thought and become still and alert, and don’t try to understand or explain. Only then can you become aware of the sacredness of the forest.”

Dedicating yourself to creative action, whatever form it takes, making it important, putting it as close as possible to the center of your life, soothes the longing for a meaningful life and the desire to connect to something larger than yourself.

Seeking the hidden harmony, the sense of the sacred in nature, we realize we can be a conscious participant and realign with the inherent beauty and purpose of life. Art promises to preserve this connection for us, if we can see our way to let it.

All of the artists featured in today’s issue have teaching videos. Check out the offerings from Mary Garrish, CW Mundy and Cyde Aspevig.