Everyone has the innate ability to create and renew, whether it’s at an artist easel, in front of a kitchen stove, or on a theater stage. It’s through the creative process that we connect with our authentic selves and gain renewal. Ever experience the type of moment when you’re so enthralled in the creative process that you lose sight of time and space? When hours pass and you’ve worked straight through lunch without even realizing the time or the need to eat? Then suddenly, the awareness strikes that you’ve lost track of time and it’s now several hours later? That is what’s called ‘flow’ and through those powerful lapses, healing takes place. The mind connects to the task, minute of distraction or awareness of feeling. Subjective experience is under complete consumption to the task devoid of external surroundings. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains, “existence is temporarily suspended’ since our nervous system is incapable of attending to stimuli other than the new creation. The ‘flow experience’ can be found in art, music, love, work, sports; any task or goal which transposes reward and ecstasy.
We have awareness levels that provide the landing pad toward renewal and creative inspiration. Keep your mindful awareness open to gain inspiration from your inner and outer worlds. Identify new ways to see things; both conceptually and with objects. Really see. Are all trees the same hue of green or can you ‘look’ and discover the myriad combinations of blue-greens, hunter browns, yellow-greens and so on. Examine objects and ideas from different perspectives. Being able to do this helps find solutions and develops cognitive flexibility. Functional fixedness is getting stuck seeing an object or situation one narrow way. Explore and discover new uses of objects. Become prismatic; seek to produce new insight and understanding by looking at situations from another lens.
Fear can stunt the renewal and creativity process. We’ve all seen young children uninhibited in the art making process. Excitedly, they use line and color to express their worlds. As children grow and become more self-critical and sensitive to others’ judgments, the freedom to create can get trampled. When I work with children and adolescents in art therapy groups or one-on-one, I provide them with the freedom to create and self-discover with no bounds. I let them know that they are the ‘boss’ of their creation and there are no standardized rules applicable to color, line or form. In their drawing, the grass can be the color purple, clouds can be orange, mythological traits can exist on their figure. This permission diminishes any pre-existing fear and gives space for the child to freely express. It is in that range of expression that internal fears and conflict are safely permitted to come to the drawing surface to then be examined and healed.
The creative arts offer ways to renew your mind and spirit. The personal choice to paint, draw, sculpt, use photography or create a collage comes from an inner need to release and non-verbally communicate. Give artistic voice to what your intuitive or visceral sensations tell you. When flipping through magazines to collect images for collage making, which symbols, colors, textures resonate within? When positioning or juxtaposing these images, what happens? Use insight to attempt to understand the need to cover over a particular image with another or partially tear away remnants of yet another. Are there any emerging themes or new realizations? What defenses arise? Your symbolic expression has multiple levels of meaning. Explore your personal symbols and examine any universal meaning.
The art making process is filled with creative energy and flow. This is the true meaning of personal renewal and creativity...the true healing art therapy allows.
Mary Pellicci Hamilton, MSAT, ATR, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor (CT) and Registered Art Therapist
President, Connecticut Art Therapy Association
Please visit her website ArtforTherapy.org or call her at 203-400-6204 ext. 3
