Free Expression Painting - The Experience
I started teaching Free Expression Painting out of a dissatisfaction with what felt like a sort of incomplete experience of teaching an academic college curriculum. I found as I was teaching at various colleges that I wanted to tell the students so much more than what was deemed “appropriate” within the ironically stiff boundaries of those institutions. Often the entire core of what creativity is, was being ignored in favour of the dictates of the “formal” requirements of academic critique, the so called “rights and wrongs” of artmaking. Sometimes, rather than empowering people to create, it destroyed their freedom and crushed there motivation to express themselves in any authentic way.
Athentic Creativity is a absolute necessity for human wellness. It has many modalities and there are many paths to choose from in terms of one’s own individual “expression” in the world. Free Expression Painting is simply one way of approaching one’s own unique creative voice and learning to trust the transformational power of the creative process. And the “process” of Free Expression Painting can be a very powerful tool for removing blocks to both an expanded professional art practice and a more fulfilling creative life in general.
I teach what I know from my own experience. We are not whole unless we understand our lives as a creative expression in and of itself. EVERYONE without exception is a creative being. I have never met, nor will I ever meet anyone who is not fundementally creative at their center. No matter how much fear and repression people experience, anyone can touch that voice of necessity inside themselves and paint with joy and freedom.
What happens in a Free Expression Painting Workshop??
We gather on the first evening for some initial information about the process, introduce ourselves to each other and chat a little about why we’re all there, breaking down tension, meeting new friends.
Each day after we meet in the morning to share and laugh a little, and gather information to help break down blocks, dissolve fear and move us into our creative core. Using an introductory exercise on the first day, as a “bridge” to Free Expression Painting, we paint for awhile, break for tea, paint some more and wander off for lunch and a rest for and hour or so. Coming back in the afternoon we meet again to share some our morning experience if we choose, and then move gently back into painting, usually accompanied by some contemplative music. Journaling and various other writing techniques come into play here along with visualizations for opening to the creative self.
Students interact with the teacher one on one but there is no critique or analysis of the work within the class. Your paintings are for you. No one is allowed to comment on anyone else’s work. My chief goal is to create a safe place for everyone to explore the immense joy of finding a space of trust in the power of their creative core. This happens in the process of allowing and accepting whatever images come up within the process.
Free Expression Painting is a means of touching the thing that many people feel is missing in there lives – an authentic means of expressing the images and stories that we all have inside. Each of us has a unique vision of the world. The greatest and most masterful painters were those who had the need and the courage to express their original vision, even if it stood outside the acceptable norms of the time. “Different” is often later understood as genius.
“The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, life long construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”
If you would like to register for a workshop or if you just have some questions please feel free to send me an email, caroline@carolinejames.com.
If you would like to organize a group of seven or more people who would like to do a workshop I offer a substantial discount for those who are willing to act as “community liason”. Please contact me for details.
|
