| When I was nineteen or twenty, I discovered The Artist’s Way, the famous book by Julia Cameron. I can’t remember exactly how, whether I’d heard of it or simply stumbled upon it at the library. What I do remember is how much it changed my perspective on life. I was studying photography at the time and I would read the book in my breaks while lying in the green grass outside the TAFE building (TAFE = Australian college). I remember putting the book down one day and looking up at the blue sky and feeling an astonishing sense of wonder at just how beautiful life can be. The blue of the sky that day and the wonder I felt is still impressed in my memory.
Fast forward sixteen years and I’m living in Berlin, working as a coach for artists and creatives, I’m a trained art therapist and I’m still a photographer. I can wholeheartedly say the Artist’s Way changed the direction of my life.
The Artist's Way showed me ways to connect with my innermost thoughts and feelings, stay connected to an artistic spirit in a world wants you to fit in with what’s ‚productive’ and it helped me to deal with a savage inner-critic. It showed me perspectives on life that were not tainted by cynicism or irony.
A lot of people say they find The Artist’s Way hard to go through for various reasons, in particular, the esoteric language can be off-putting. The amount of exercises offered per week on top of the compulsory artist date and morning pages can make the full twelve weeks seem difficult to achieve.
However, I can tell you from my experience, it’s worth doing.
Why?
The Artist’s Way provides you with a framework and guidelines in terms of time, space and direction in which to cultivate parts of your self that are undernourished but that whisper to you in quiet moments. It's possible they yell at you.
Perhaps, not listening to these whispers makes you feel guilty, or lonely, or unfulfilled. You have a sense that something exists inside you that wants to come out but you haven’t given it the space it needs yet.
The Artist's Way facilitates that thing or those things coming out.
By offering an Artist’s Way group this winter I’d like to support you and others like you whatever creative impulses are stirring within you to emerge.
What’s different about this group:
I will show you how to use art-making itself as a way to connect with your inner creative impulses.
As an art therapist I have seen, with wonder, how image-making combined with intelligent and compassionate reflection processes can bypass over-thinking and surprise the creator with a sudden new insight about their life.
Therefore, we will sometimes use art-making instead of writing to respond to the exercises.
We will keep it simple. We will focus only one to three exercises per week and aim to go deeper instead of doing too many.
We will skip the esoteric language. Bring your own sense of existential intelligence or spirituality with you or you can cultivate what those terms mean to you throughout the program.
You will want to participate in this group if:
- you have an artistic and creative impulse whispering in you (or blatantly yelling) and you think it’s time to give that side of you more space.
- you’ve already thought about doing The Artist’s Way but have found it hard to commit for whatever reason.
- you’ve completed The Artist’s Way already and loved it and want to explore the topics by taking them a layer deeper this time.
- you’re confused about what to do with your life next and would like a nurturing and encouraging creative space gain clarity on that.
- you want something soul nourishing to do over the winter months in Berlin.
- you’re curious to learn more about using art-making as an insight process.
Why would you want to pay for a group when you could do it on your own?
A few reasons:
- in this group I’m offering a modernised and artful approach to the book, it’s not just going through the book. We’re taking the core themes from each week and digging a bit deeper using techniques I’ve learned from art therapy rather than taking a scattergun approach to doing the exercises.
- having an experienced facilitator helps the group stay on track, provides moderation and ensures that everything is well organised.
- Sharing your experiences with others, being witnessed and heard is powerful. It makes you stronger. It makes us stronger.
- Hearing the experiences of other participants helps you too.
- Commitment and accountability. No creative u-turns this time.
It begins Tuesday November 12th, 7-9pm at KLL Studio in Berlin (near U-Bernauer Strasse). It runs for 12 weeks with a break in the middle for the holiday season.
Places are limited and bookings are essential.
Full details, dates and pricing options can be found on the website here: http://www.thegreatcreativelife.com/the-artists-way-berlin/
For questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me!
If you know someone else that would love this group experience - please forward this to them.
Yours,
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