I'm reading and taking part in The Artist Way - 12 Week Course by Julia Cameron. It's a spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. We meet weekly on zoom. Each week I have set intention to do some artwork. This is the drawing I started during the first meeting, and finished the following few days:
The Buddha-like figure on the left represents the facilitator Rachel Moore. She is left faceless and has a blank paper in her hand because she is holding a container for our creativity. Her hand subtly points to a divine source we all feel above us and can tap in to for inspiration. Her other arms is filled with years of writing and experience. She is an excellent facilitator who holds space for us to share, connect and take steps forward on our art and spiritual path.
We have all been through a lot to get to where we are today. Like the stick figure on the top left: it takes a leap of faith to be creative by creating art and writing morning pages. The 12 squarish zoom windows in the drawing represent the fellow artists in the course. We will be sharing this journey together to witness each other and keep each other on track.
The following 2 weeks I hadn't set a strong intention to do a complete drawing each week, so they are a lot less refined. Even including notes from a different thing.
Week 3 is when I tapped into something. This doodle started off with no meaning. It was just shapes moving together that I drew during the group meeting. The bottom left corner was left blank. After the meeting, I though I should fill in the bottom corner. I thought to myself, "It would be cool to have a little figure admiring the drawing." As I drew the little figure, I made it so he is striving for the circle on the other side of the paper. I added a hole in the middle of the figure, to represent an emptiness that the art was striving to fill.
I was worried that it wasn't clear enough, so when I took the photo of the drawing, I put a small battery on top of the circle the main character is reaching for. This makes it stand out and adds a bit more meaning. The battery is full of power. The topic of Week 3 is: Recovering a sense of Power.
The concept of a figure reaching for a circle carried into the next drawing for Week 5 above. I started by drawing a circle, then added the spiky fingers around it, followed by the figure reaching for the circle. This figure is boxy along with the style of the drawing to create contrast between the boxy world, and the desire for soft round objects. The boxy figure is even collecting these circles they are so valuable.
Week 6 started with just shapes interacting like how I usually start. No expectation. The contrast between round and straight continues as a way to play and push the doodles forward.
A big part of the Artist Way Teaching is to create art, even if it is not good or doesn't mean anything. It's about doing it, and allowing it to show up however it needs to. This is the guiding principle of doodling; making shapes that fit together without much meaning. But what I enjoy about art is when meaning emerges or even better when meaning is embroidered into it. This art piece for week 7 is all about meaning and interpretation. What does this drawing mean to you?
Week 8 is "Recovering a sense of Strength". In this drawing I started with the cogs, being the "smart feet" of doing the work, for the sake of doing it, not because it feels like it's the right thing to do in the moment. This is an aspect of strength: Self-discipline to do practices that I sign up for. This week I will pay extra attention to this, creating a more ridged morning routine, and daily practice.
This art piece has 3 parts. The bottom is all the negative, sorrow, lack, isolation and suffering I acknowledge and learn from. This leads the artist up stairs to the middle, where the work is done. This is where the artist acts with strength and discipline to let their artwork take flight. The top is where the cogs have been turning to create forward progress and results.
