Overcoming the Fear of Art

By Angela Murrills

Big splashy paintings, bright paper collages, and intricate models made with crinkle–browed concentration from Popsicle sticks: walk into a grade 4 classroom, and you are deluged with what the human imagination can achieve. Each of us is born creative, but at some point all that simple joyous pleasure we take in what we can make gets stopped, and we're moved on to what the big people think are more "sensible" pursuits.

Linda Naiman knows in her bones that our creativity doesn't just dry up and blow away. Like a genie in a bottle, it's still there, and she's going to help us set it free. At a Yaletown studio, we've all met one rainy Friday evening—four women, all in their 30's or 40's, and a 21 year old man—to take part in one of her weekend workshops. Naiman is a painter, but this creativity workshop is, she stresses, for anyone. Our group includes a caterer, an actor, a furniture maker, and someone in management. Previous participants have included a computer-systems expert, a high school physics teacher, and a flight attendant.

Naiman tells us that fear stops us from exploring anything new. During the next couple of days, we will dig out our negatives and learn to turn them into positives. We end the evening by outlining each other life-size on lengths of brown paper which will become canvasses for our dreams.

Saturday is when the jitters set in at the thought of letting it all hang out artistically. "You must learn to ignore your inner critic,"says Naiman, "the voice that says you can't, you mustn't." She points us toward a table loaded with tempera paints, big brushes and lots of blank white paper. None of us has wielded a paintbrush since high school. "Make your first painting really ugly," says Naiman, and enthusiasm pre-empts nervousness as we realize it's alright—what we're making is supposed to look awful.

Throughout the weekend, we loosen up physically to the sound of drums, mentally through meditation breaks. During one significant session, Naiman quietly guides us to defining our own picture of ourselves. Returning to reality is like waking from a long sleep; fuelled by this concrete vision, we will attempt to depict it visually.

The work begins as we paint our brown-paper figures and their backgrounds. Having cut our teeth on smaller pieces of art, we are now far more confident. Primary colours explode like fireworks. Blues and celestial violets are swirled together. A sombre black background frames a figure that its owner crams with strange hieroglyphic shapes. I paint my body shape in what's intended to be a terracotta colour but ends up looking like a sunburn.

The image I had seen earlier was a patchwork quilt, glowing with colours. In my head, I had tried to walk around it to see what it covered, but no, the quilt was the vision. Maybe, I think — sometime between Saturday and Sunday—maybe my ideal life is one that's fully integrated, and maybe in reality, it is always going to be five minutes of doing this, five minutes doing that. So be it. At least I can try to combine all those fragments into one beautiful picture.

And that's what I do. The previous day, we had cut out images from magazines that appealed to some aspect us, but instead of choosing whole pictures to work with, I divide my pile of clippings into those that reflect the part of me that loves the English countryside, woods, and gardens with those mirroring the side that likes cozy rooms, books, music, food and textures. Cool greens, aquas; warm,nourishing reds, and caramels—I tear them into strips and stick them down, piece by piece, making a two layered patchwork dress. All it takes, I suddenly realize, is organization.

By Sunday afternoon, we're thoroughly comfortable with one another, and once in a while we check out what the others are doing. The hieroglyphic figure is now framed in a green so pale it's like a frozen candlelight. Reflecting her vision of a simplified, uncluttered existence, another participant has stacked all her symbols to the side, well away from her body shape. Each piece of art is entirely different, but all are proof that every one of us has the innate ability to be creative our way.

In hindsight, we realize we've learned other things too. The ability to finish a project to meet a deadline. The joy of losing all sense of time and place in pure creativity. "I've overcome the fear I had about expressing myself," says one participant. Another has resolved to stop letting her inner critic run her life.

What I take away is a clearer vision of what I need in my life and the discovery that although you can always try to do it perfectly, it's more important just to do it.

Reprinted with permission from the Georgia Straight. This article first appeared in March4–11, 1994

Linda Naiman is available to conduct workshops on Liberating your Creativity at your Spa, Retreat or Conference.

www.creativityatwork.com