Are you asking yourself "What happened to my creativity?”

Whether you are an artist seeking new inspiration or experiencing a creative block, or a professional creative feeling lost and burned out in a demanding environment, or someone who yearns to be more creative and expressive but simply doesn’t know how, you may have found that the creative energies that used to feel so abundant don’t seem to be available to you these days. You might find that it’s gotten harder and harder to access your own creativity. Perhaps you can still create, but the ideas aren’t flowing, and you don’t really like what you find yourself creating. You feel disconnected from it somehow; it just doesn’t have any life.


If this goes on, it gets harder and harder to create at all. It can seem like every stroke of your brush, word from your pen or keyboard, or note from your piano is like pulling a load of heavy rocks up a mountain. Self-recrimination and fear can begin to dominate your thoughts, and keep you from knowing and expressing your true self in your art—and in your life. Not trusting yourself, you begin to devalue yourself, and from feelings of desperation and helplessness you might start to copy the people you see as being “actually creative” in the hope that you can feel alive and creative again.

Creating Without Expectations? Surely You Jest!

When artists approach me, it’s because they want to create for fun, without the pressure of expectations, to loosen up a bit. As we work together, they start to breathe fully again. They begin to realize how cut off they’ve become from the wellspring of creativity that gives their life and work meaning and authenticity. Want-to-be artists will come to me saying they would love be able to paint beautiful pictures, but they just don't have the skills—but as we talk more, what emerges is that they’re yearning for the same things as the artist: they’re feeling stuck or blocked, and what they truly want is to feel more creative and alive.

 

Whether creativity is your passion, your living, or something you’ve denied for too long and now yearn for, in ALL cases what I’ve seen is that the best way to feel more creative and alive is to remove judgment from your creative endeavors and place the emphasis on the process over the product.

 

Most of us have been taught from an early age that, to be good at anything, you must focus on the end product: planning, preparing, analyzing and evaluating at every step to make sure you reach the desired goal. But when it comes to creative expression, this approach is actually counter-productive. Surprisingly, when you shift your focus away from the end product, and prioritize your intuition and inner wisdom over your judging mind, you begin to access a wider range of impulses and inspiration. This leads to better art! And, just as being blocked creatively leads to a blocked life, unblocking creativity leads to a better life—to feeling more fully ALIVE.

 

The spirit of my work is to free you from the fear of your own power so you can open yourself to the creative energy within. In doing so, you will feel more alive and fully engaged with the magic of life. With this new energy, you can more fully and confidently open to the world and the people around you, and to the Source of that aliveness, and feel deeply held and loved and supported in that Source. As you tap into your creative power and shine forth your unique iridescent radiance, you develop the power to create your own life, and bring more beauty, healing, and light into the world.

I feel your pain, believe me

As someone who was blocked and stuck and in pain (literal, physical pain) for years, I know your struggle. I know that the kind of life I’ve described can feel like an impossible thing to achieve. But I also know that you DO have the power within you to bring your creative spark back—to change your story, and to re-create your life to include more delight, inspiration, meaning, fun, clarity, flow, and joy.

 

You might believe (maybe have even been told) that the only way to become unblocked and live more fully is by slogging through really hard work and therapy. But what I’ve found is that purposeful play, expressive arts, and intuitive process painting is not only one of the best ways to move into the creative healing and transformation you yearn for, it can actually be really fun and delightful. I would even say magical.

 The 6 Key Elements of Painted Crow

So, at Painted Crow Expressive Arts, I guide you, in a number of ways, to live the six key elements that are at the heart of living a more inspired, creative life: 

• Let your creativity thrive in a judgment free space

• Experience radical self-acceptance

• Play freely with brushes, paints, paper and colors, and let go of expectations and outcomes

• Get out of your head and into your heart

• Turn off all those words and work directly with image

• Don’t fight with your inner critics: Dance with them!

 

Does all of this sound as fun and fulfilling to you as it does to me? Sign up for my newsletter to hear about upcoming classes and events, and to see the latest artwork and images to emerge from the Crow’s Loft.