I have to politely and respectfully disagree with those of you that say you aren’t artists, can’t draw, and leave the art to other members of your family or friends.  You say you’re just “not artistic,” or “can’t draw a straight line.”  My mother used to teach art, to members of Girl Scout troops, or people that came into her ceramic store to work on projects.  Most of these people didn’t think they had any talent.  She’d show them that they all had talent, each in their own unique way.  There aren’t very many straight lines in nature, or for that matter, anywhere.  And art isn’t about straight lines anyway.

I was taking notes while I was reading “Trust the Process” by McNiff; I ended up with 3 or 4 pages of the author’s thoughts.  I’ll share some with you, in an effort to change your mind, or at least sway it a bit toward realizing the art each of you has inside.

• “The empty space is the great horror and stimulant of creation.”
• “One creative act is the stimulus for another.  The painting stimulates a story and the story shifts to body movement and vocal improvisation.  Which inspires another series of paintings.”
• “The best way to quickly expand the scope of creative expression is to actively experiement with different roles.”
• “A writer friend used to tell me that single-octave living is boring and unproductive.”
• “The creative imagination requires a certain abandonment and disregard for results, which often paradoxically generate the most useful outcomes.”
• “The process of creation is a force moving through us, and only through practice do we learn how to cooperate with it.”
• “The process is like a muscle.  It needs to be exercised in order to function effortlessly.”

I think we all wish we could paint or sing or dance or write effortlessly.  But it’s not like that.  Even professional artists practice.  They practice every day.  And if any of us decide we want to do something creative we must expect to work at it too.  Nothing comes free.

Art is everywhere.  To prove it, I have interspersed photos I took today at the mall during my walk.  Think of it as creative expression filling in the blank spaces. 

Look around you.  You’ll see your touches of art, peeking out of the oven when you’re making a special family dinner, oozing out of that warm family room you just repainted, that office you just organized.  Sitting quietly in the photo album of last summer’s vacation, or in the box of family photos sitting on the shelf.  It’s right there in the blog entries you write when you share bits of your lives with the rest of us.  When you sing in church, or alone in the car at the red light, that’s art.  Dancing with your loved one at a wedding or on your anniversary, that’s art too.

Don’t ever think you aren’t artistic.  As a child you painted and danced and sang.  It’s all still in there, we’ve just let ourself be told that we’re not “good enough” at painting and dancing and singing.  That’s foolishness.  If you want to let that creative energy out, let it out!  And let it out a lot!  Practice practice practice, ignore what you think are mistakes, move along.  Just do it.

There.  I think I’ve convinced myself.