Your Art Initiations A Spiritual Instruction Module by Cynthia Winton-Henry “I Do” Initiations “I Am” Initiations “Who Do You Say that I Am?” The “Artist’s Way: “Space, Time, and Energy Initiations” “How Shall I Manifest?” Initiating New Stages as Artists and Mystics Artist’s Way Lessons
Are you artful with words, images, movement, voice, people, food, something else? Can you let go deeply into color, texture, movement, etc? Do both your forms of making AND conveying meaning matter? Do insights arise that wouldn’t come otherwise? Do others respond to your art? Is this a quick or slow process? Does it matter? Do you extend special care to how you make a thing? Do you push past boredom to deepen skill in a form? Do you say that you are an artist? Does the making process draw you in and keep you engaged? How important is it to transcend hurdles? How often do you make art? Is it important to make art frequently? What hurdles have you encountered in art making? What story do you tell about being an artist? What time, energy, and space do you claim for art? When you tire of a form do you find a new form?
“I do art” Initiations I like to make art. I like to make dances. I liked to sing in the choir. I LOVE UKULELE. Don’t ask me why. Art is something I do. Aboriginal, Alaskan, and African first peoples don’t have words for artist or art. Artmaking is not separate from life. It is HOW people live. The community dances, sings, dreams, drums, and creates objects together. There is time to make ornate garments and sacred symbols. When a child shows adeptness or enthusiasm a grandparent, uncle, aunt or elder calls it forth saying, “You must tell stories,” “You must dance,” “You must sing,” “You must speak.” Do you make art? You are that art. You are dance. You are word. You are song. What you do is who you are. This has nothing to do with “being great at it.” It has nothing to do with money. In Chasing the Dance of Life: A Faith Journey, I recall rocking out to Elvis on the radio as a 3 year old, becoming enchanted by Swan Lake at age five, dancing into and out of theaters and church naves. I realize that I am dance. Visual art? It quietly follows me. It is not a chase. My 7 th grade art teacher put my rendition of a brightly colored Victorian house in the LA Unified School District art exhibit. Afterwards mom arranged private oil painting lessons with a neighborhood lady who coached me on how to paint a snow scene, a hunting still life, a floral still life, and an ocean landscape. I showed enough understanding of proportion and composition to feel competent. I can’t say the same for accordion or piano lessons. I enrolled in a drawing class my first year at UCLA, thinking about a visual art minor. One day the teacher asked the class to draw a still life with charcoal to practice dark and light contrasts. While I was focusing on getting the proportions right, the instructor looked over my shoulder and with a harsh voice said, “Where’s the contrast?” He grabbed a charcoal and jabbed my drawing with huge, intense marks, ruining it. I didn’t take another visual art class in college. This kind of hurdle can end the growth of artistic intelligence. Instead, I told myself that visual art classes could wait. M E A N W H I L E….I continued to sketch images as they arose from my hand and heart. I brought visual sensibility to worship design; including that time I created a giant pomegranate, an ancient symbol of Christian community, for a religious assembly. As the pomegranate opened and burst forth throughout the assembly over the course of a weekend, somebody said it looked like a giant hemorrhoid. I would have to concur. My idea was better than my execution.
Art Initiations are about learning who we are, what our limits and capacities are, what we love. I thought ballet was THE best form of dance, but my young lean body wasn’t capable of turn-out, splits, or pirouettes. I had the “feel” of dance but inherited grand-canyon hip sockets. My thighbones insert into deep holes that restrict turn out. The Winton children rock at turn in. Was this why I was passed over whenever my ballet teacher asked someone to demonstrate? I was forced to find my own dance. Fortunately, the LA public schools provided dance as an alternative to PE. I learned that I loved to choreograph. The entire student body witnessed my dances and didn’t laugh at my winter wonderland dance. Teachers and mentors encouraged me. One took me to Baja Mexico to dance in a cultural exchange. This gave me the courage to study dance in college. Then, in my third year at UCLA back in ballet, my body refused to do any more floor combinations. I dropped out of school for six months and told my teachers I needed to rest. My intuition was right. I returned a stronger dancer. Letting go of art in order to have it was an important lesson. I never “made it” in ballet. But, my dancing is stronger for what ballet gave me. I dance, I sing, I make art, I mess around. I love all of it. On a basic level I believe we are all artists when we make things with care. There is no need to worry this idea. Neither the “I” nor the “am” needs to be capitalized. But for some, one question continues to haunt us. AM I AN ARTIST? “AM I?” Initiations In graduate school I realized that a dancer is rarely named as an artist. Was I an artist? How could I become one when the name artist confers the deepest respect and points at crazy, wild insanity? “Artist” says something not only about what one does, but how one thinks and perceives. Do I think like an artist? Am I crazy? Am I willing to be both rejected and revered? Being an artist seems like a “higher calling.” It’s rarely listed as a job. To be one requires courage, inner authority, intuition, dedication and unique forms of mastery. Artists must ask for assistance, money, and alms. Yet, I imagine no better path. How important is it to dance and make art? How important is it to say, “I AM an Artist.” When I figured out that I respected being an artist more than anything else I wondered, “Is respect a clue to my identity?” How could I say, “I am an artist.” Did I need to 1) win awards, 2) be invited to do my art, 3) claim it all on my own? I am sure some wise person helped me understand all this. Once I did, on my 25 th birthday I
claimed being an artist. It was the best gift I ever gave myself, a simple initiatory moment that defines my path. I told no one. It’s just who “I Am.” I was initiated. Recently, at my Redux studio I didn’t have my key. To the woman behind the desk I said, “I am one of the artists. Can I go through the door?” It was the first time I ever said, “I am one of the artists” and didn’t mean dance or performance. The woman greeted me with a smile, asked my name, and said, “of course.” I tell myself and tell others I am an artist. Where are you on this journey? “Who do you say that I AM” Initiations To share art is like dreaming together or sharing each other’s mystical states. When our art is witnessed it confirms our suspicions. We are art in process. Who do you say that I am? On Second Friday’s I open my Redux studio and strangers look at my tattooed baby saints, prayer cards, assemblages, and drawings. Sometimes they ask, “What kind of art is this? I laugh and say, “I don’t know, what would you call it?” One boy came in with his Mother, looked around and saw the large Richard Scarry Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book on my desk. When he opened it he realized that this was not the children’s book he knew. I told him, “I took the pages out and put my own art in there. Maybe you’ll do something like that some day.” I watched him carefully turn the loose pages of my sharpie drawings. Were those the eyes of an artist? That would be reason enough to open my studio. With unusual care he and his mother without words said, “You are an artist.” Who do you say that I am?
Have you ever asked a person you trust, “Am I an artist?” Have they showed or told you. “Yes, you are?” I am surprised when someone responds to my art, even more when they blurt out that they like something I made, and a bit shocked if someone wants to buy something. Visual art as livelihood is not what motivates me. But their sincere interest answers my question, “Who do you say that I am.” Not formally trained, I remind myself that when I sold art wands in a gallery in Santa Fe the gallery owner took me as an artist. Sheila Collins bought one of my silk paintings at an InterPlay auction and hung it over her bed. My drawings are displayed on fridges and altars of friends. Who do they say that I am? To invite people to witness my art, tolerating inner and outer criticism, curiosity, confusion and bemused looks initiates me as an artist. Like everything else, I must give up wondering if I am any good. That is not the question. For me, art is a way of knowing, of sharing who I am, and conversing with my muses, higher self, and the divine. Who do you say that I am? I’ve courted critics who then compared my original work to someone else’s standard. Still, even a bad review confirms my role as an artist. “Who do you say that I am?” My greatest struggle is getting no response at all. Can I practice and play “No Matter Who Shows Up, even if its just one person. If I still want to make art, is being witnessed by the Divine witness enough? That has been true for some of our greatest artists. Women artists’ through-out the centuries had no audience outside the home and very little time to give to it. We know ourselves in part in the eyes of others. Artist’s Way Initiations What kind of art do you like to make? Is it important to do it frequently? How does art help you or not? Have you experienced blocks? For me art making is about learning, solace, prayer, creating new realities, changing energy, escape, journeying, healing, meeting others, getting lost, getting found, meditation and nothing at all other than play. More and more people are reclaiming that their creativity and spirituality belong together and that art is a way of life. In 2000, Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson identified 50 million adult Americans (slightly over one quarter of the adult population) and 80–90 million in Europe in the category of cultural creatives.
There is now a conscious dance movement for people who practice a “wholistic movement lifestyle.” One of its numerous expressions is InterPlay started in 1989, which continues to spread around the world as one of the top ten conscious movement modalities named by Conscious Dancer Magazine. The1992 book The Artist’s Way set off a wave of artistic remembering. Wikipedia says, “The book was originally titled, Healing the Artist Within, and was turned down by the William Morris literary agency, before being self-published. After the book began to sell widely, the title was then changed, when the book was published by Jeremy Tarcher (now The Penguin Group) in 1992. The book went on to reach the Top 10 best seller list and onto the list of the Top 100 Best SelfHelp Books of All Time. The book was eventually put into the "Self-Publishing Hall of Fame" after selling millions of copies worldwide. Cameron maintains throughout the book that creative inspiration is from and of a divine origin and influence, that artists seeking to enable creativity need to understand and believe in. "God is an artist. So are we. And we can cooperate with each other. Our creative dreams and longings do come from a divine source, not from the human ego." The Artist Way strikes deep chords with its 10 Basic Principles, two key tools– morning pages and artist’s dates–and 12 lessons that unlock creative and spiritual access. Morning pages help people rewrite their story as a path of artistic and spiritual initiations. Artist dates help set the intention for practicing anew. Have you written down the highlights of your art story? See the 12 lesson titles at the end of this essay. Do any resonate for you at this time? Time, Space, Energy Creative people play with three great realms of influence. Space, Time, and Energy. It is an artful process to ask what kind of time, space, and energy is desirable? If you can play with freedom and power to bless, reveal, or shift these areas you can become a social artist in any field. Freedom and power to affect space, time, and energy can also be rigorous. Freedom is what we want. But how do we live and create with true freedom? Artistic freedom requires creating our own disciplines and demands that we become intimate with our limitations and fearless around our strengths! What are my limits? What are my strengths as I work with time, space, and energy? Who owns my time, energy, and space? These challenges are intense. When an employee is asked to wear pagers 24/7, their time is not their own. When our time, space, and energy are “taken” up by others, that may be a joy or it could be slavery. If we agree to it that is one thing. If we have no choice that is another thing. What is your relationship to your space, your time, and your use of energy? What do
you have the power to do? What do you do with freedom to create when you have it? Most people need communities of accountability and teachers in order to create. A few people may not need a teacher if you know where your areas of mastery and challenge lay and find that you can progress. How do you play with time arts? Do you play with music, drum, meditation, trance, and film? What is timing? Do you know how to speed up, slow down, or expand time? Have you learned to do this from experience, a teacher, a school? How do you play with space arts? Sculpture, environments, architecture, stages, landscapes. Do you know how to alter, claim, hide, reveal or make space sacred? Did you learn yourself, a teacher, or at school? How do you play with energy? Dance, martial arts, healing arts, applications of effort, movement, force and power. Do you know how to shift, access, diminish, turn off and choose the right energy for the right circumstance? Did you learn this on your own, from a teacher or school? When we recognize the physical patterns in our interplay with space, time and energy, we can make choices about how to influence them for our own good and for the good of others. We can engage life as art and apply creativity to our life purpose, that uniquely challenging, captivating desire for the world and ourselves. “How Shall I Manifest?” Next Stages as Artists and Mystics Taking action, stumbling along and sacrificing in order to make art and be artists is part of the deal. Sometimes this is offered to us on a platter and the risk is to accept it. Having my own art studio was not something I asked for, yet it appeared. Was I willing to step into it? I am learning how important is a space for making art. Do I need to make art IN the studio now or can I still do it anywhere? Can I be a weird, mystical, self trained artist alongside celebrated artists like Sandy Drobny in the studio next to me who makes incredible art aprons out of reclaimed plastic. Thankfully, I have done enough InterPlay to know that whatever I create can be an inspiration, even if it is not “the best.” The art gallery and studios of Redux welcome “Outsider Art.” Wikipedia says outsiders include, “those who have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art
institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.” I see parallels between being an outsider artist and mystic. Those who think artistically, think mystically. We often have visions and are compelled to bring those visions into the world. If you work in the realms of ceremony, ritual, or teaching there is a very good change that you are a visionary artist. You are working with shaping spaces, use of timing, and efficiency of energy, slowing down and speeding up energy. Most artists have dry spells, struggling as we move from one art form to another, create in secret, shift direction, or prepare to debut in retirement. As a life long artist I’ve played in and out of inspiration, loving and hating my “projects,” and wondering if I am ahead or behind the times. Beyond the fascinating initiation of being an artist, the real initiations begin. How do you sustain yourself as an artist? This is an economic question, a partnership and community support question, as well as an art form question. I am amazed at what people are willing to do for their art when they realize it is fundamental to who they are. It takes real resolve and lots of support to maintain our creative life. Sometimes we feel lost. Many a time art energy goes to home-making, relationship making, child rearing, a job, or care-giving. We wonder if we will ever make art again. We can learn to claim the art that can we do at given time and respect that how we deal with choices that involve our time, space, energy, and financial resources will affect our selfunderstanding as artists. Are you your own patron? What is your day job? Do you ask for patronage? Indigogo, kickstarter, mom and dad? Who is your audience? The cat? A clientele? Classmates? Friends? Fans? Do you share your art? Do you need to honor ways of making that are not called “art.”? Is all of this overwhelming? Can you make peace with the limits of your time, space, energy, and money? Making a living as an artist is one of the more difficult paths to take. Managing and administering practicalities becomes part of your art, is handed off to someone, or becomes a roadblock until a way through appears. I believe that art is soul-speak, a necessary way of knowing and experiencing soul. For this reason I coach people moving through family, work, healing, and social service demands to keep the art spark alive. Sometimes just one supportive witness can make all the difference in the world. But, most need community and structures. InterPlay is one of those structures for those who are asking and answering who are my people? I am grateful for family, friends and playmates that fill my life with art.
The Artists Way: Outline of Initiation Lessons “The Artist Way, a 229-page book is actually a course to free your creativity. The entire course is based upon the principle that the artist must have faith to be creative. It is the author's conviction that the Creator encourages creativity in all people. The book is broken down into twelve weekly lessons. There are several miscellaneous sections. Each weekly lesson has tasks and exercises to be completed. Sidebars provide quotes and tidbits of information to uplift the soul. The divisions of the manual are as follow: In the introduction, the author explains how she began teaching and eventually developed her seminars and lectures into a book. Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles defines the ten spiritual principles, gives directions for using this course, and tells the reader what to expect from the course. The Basic Tools introduces the two primary tools of the course: the morning pages and the artist date. The morning pages are three handwritten pages, penned in stream-ofconsciousness, without looking back at the previous pages. The artist date is time set aside to be spent with your inner artist. There is even a creativity contract. Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety deals with realizing what negative beliefs and hurts from the past are blocking or restricting your creativity and replacing them with positive affirmations. Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity begins with a section called "Going Sane." It deals with the people you surround yourself with in life and how they exert negative influence over your creativity. Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power leaps right into anger management, shame, and dealing with criticism. It examines how most people are afraid that there is a God watching everything we do. Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity is about learning to distinguish between the mask you wear for the public and your real inner feelings. There are exercises in learning what you really want from life and in sensory deprivation. Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility begins with the following sentence: "One of the chief barriers to accepting God's generosity is our limited notion of what we are in fact able to accomplish." This lesson teaches us to break through those barriers. Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance will have you tossing out clothing and gathering rocks. It teaches us that there is abundance in our lives and that our creativity requires its own portion of luxury. Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection covers jealousy, perfectionism, risk, and learning to listen to our inner artist. Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength teaches us to turn loss into gain by metabolizing the pain into energy. There is an exercise to help the artist break out of the early patterning, to overcome the negativity of childhood. Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion deals with avoiding self-defeat and learning to logically deal with fears.
Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection enlightens us about the spiritual demons we create to battle our creativity: workaholism, fame, competition, and drought. Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy focuses on how to handle success, how to nurture the inner artist, and the connection between nurturing the inner artist and self-respect. Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith reminds us of the pitfalls to our creativity and helps us learn to have faith. The book ends with sections on questions and answers, creativity clusters, and forming a sacred circle.