Break Through to New Ideas

A friend of mine recently described a break-through experience she had. She was having a creative block and went to a well known artist/teacher for some help. The teacher gave her 10 small sheets of glass, about 8” x 10” and told her she had only one hour to complete a painting on each piece of glass during that time. After the hour was over, the teacher took out a hammer and told her to smash them all. After shattering the paintings she was then instructed to create something using the shattered pieces. This exercise had momentous results. First of all, creating many small paintings in a short specified time period gets your creative juices flowing, and you can work through many ideas quickly. By smashing the paintings, it creates a powerful ritual to let go of attachment. My friend did remark how difficult it was to destroy something she just made and liked. Then, by using the pieces to create something else she was creating something new from something destroyed, which shifts the painting process to a cycle rather than a linear process. This reminds me of something I like to use for myself and students in my workshops. I have an idea that I want to use for a painting. As a metaphor I think of this first idea as an “egg”. I use the initial idea to get something going on the canvas. After awhile I get to a point where I can feel a resistance happening. This is the time where the egg needs to be broken to make an omelet. In other words, I need to let go of the initial idea, by removing my reference material from sight, or letting myself paint over sections, or introduce something very new. It’s a point where I need to let the paintings start to have some say in the process, and by letting go of some of the control, not pushing so hard to get that end result I had in mind, I will most likely end up with something very new, maybe surprising, but most definitely more powerful than if I had forced the painting to continue in the same line of thought as in the beginning. I like to let the process change my mind. And in this way painting never ceases to be inspiring.