Graphic Journaling lesson 3: the roof is on fire aka don’t believe the hype
Yay we made it also through our 3rd class and you all where on fire!
We started the class with a meditation to set our intention for the afternoon, to recentrer into our purpose. This is so important because often we got lost into habits and patterns and we are so much more than that!
Then, while still being in semi meditative state, we worked on our self portrait to embodying our practice even a little more right before the fire start, the Drawing Jam!
Each one of the student wrote a word in a private chat, and then had 30’’ for drawing each word and, in this way, we had all sort of drawing assignments! from “lamp” (twice) to “panties” but also “growth” or “stretching”. It was fun, wasn’t it?
For most of us, on a way or another, is rare to go on with an artistic practice once we have lost our baby’s theeth (for Rudolf Steiner once we’ve lost our baby’s teeth we were entered in the “age of reason”), once we begin to think of ourselves as “good at something and bad at something else” we are to afraid to create freely. And sometimes is not even true! But the side effects of this rationalisation of our skills are profound, once we abandon those activity because “we are bad at it” our groove is lost, our freedom of mind is wrecked and it can be for life.
The thing is, if you think your drawing is bad, I mean… if you don’t like it, remember that it’s only your ego that’s judging it. The ego is ambitious and sometimes is useful, with 0% ego maybe we won’t even get out of bed in the morning! Ego can be a tool but it can’t rule you. Is like letting a hammer decide on you life, right? The ego want to divide us from the rest, this is true in life AND in our artistic practice. It happens when we judge our drawing because in that moment we are less than the other artists, poor us! AND it happens when we scroll through Instagram and see a drawing and think: “eeewww this sucks!” too! Because in that moment, even if the “other artists” are below us, we still are “divided”.
I KNOW YOU DO THIS! We all do this! The trick is: don’t believe what your ego sais! Feeling better than the others is not self esteem, is just the other side of self pity. Self esteem is knowing that you are unique and you don’t need for other people to be less than you to be it.
When we judge other people’s work we inhibit our creativity too! Think about it, if you judge others THEN you’ll be afraid that others will do the same on you and you’ll find yourself creating out of fear of being judged aka you’ll be creating to have something that people love. And it will happen that you want to do a “cool” drawing just to amaze people AND THAT’S OK, as long as you are aware of it and you don’t believe the hype.
The cool thing is, we are working in our journal and our journal is our home and we are FREE.
During our timed, crazy, exercises (a house on fire anyone?) we start to learn how to trust our senses and shut our mind off. Sometimes if we only trust our senses, and we go for it, we will see that -wooow!- we CAN ACTUALLY draw!
Yes! Everyone can draw, everyone is unique and can bring their own message (I wish they taught me this in art school, I wish I’ve heard that when I was 16, 20 and even 30!) and if you needed to hear that, maybe you would like to consider of becoming a student on Patreon….
After our drawing exercises we finished our class with this Emily Dickinson’s poem that, dunno why, I thought it would be a sort of ode to our journal and our freedom (maybe you’re interpreting it different, hit reply to tell me)
It goes like:
“He Ate and Drank the Precious Words” by Emily Dickinson
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings
Ah and also:
“Emily Dickinson was born to a prominent Massachusetts family and spent the bulk of her life inside her home in Amherst. Only seven of her poems were published during her lifetime, and virtually none were published as originally written until the mid 1950s. (Emily’s odd punctuation, capitalization, and formatting did not meet with standard publishing ?approval” for earlier editions.)”
amazing right? We are so ruling this quarantine like Dickinson: inside our homes, dressing in whit….pajamas and producing art while thinking about death and covid19. So Dickinson, We rule!
see you Sunday.