you don’t need to be good at art to enjoy it

How many of you out there believe that you aren’t  good at art?

I bet the majority of you answered “me!” and also maybe  moved a little restlessly in your seat and maaaaybe even felt a little bit uncomfortable.

Well i’d like to just say that you don’t need to be good at art to enjoy it.

Being creative is a process that while we are in the flow of it takes us on a journey itto our inner world, it connects us with our intuition and our hearts, it is one way that we can practise self love and self care- renewing our spirit and it both relaxing us and challenges us. It removes the controlling logical thinking and allows us to simply “let go” and gives us an attitude of mindfulness.

When we are drawing, painting, dancing, writing poems, writing stories, singing, playing music (you get the picture) we are practising “present moment thinking” and learning to actively switch off our busy, fearful, over thinking ego driven left hand brain. This is vital if we wish to balance our minds and live more relaxed lives.

My husband returns from work most night  exhausted from a hard day  work as a tradie, he walks through the door and knows he needs a few moments to relax before he takes on the evening roll of writing quotes and doing mindless paper work, he takes himself off upstairs , picks up his guitar and spends a while just simply playing.

Now , is he doing this to become a great musician or join a band, no, he is simply doing it as he knows it relaxes him,  it is a way for him to turn off his brain,  shut down the the over worked logical thinking ego driven left hand brain and just stop for a while, be in the moment, and just thoroughly enjoy a moments peace from over thinking.

It is IMPORTANT to him.

This brings me on to my second question.

Those of you that answered ‘I believe i’m not good at art’, how many of you  believe that creativity is UNIMPORTANT and something unnecessary .

Let me ask then, did you feel this way as a child?

I bet you  didn’t , i bet as a child you loved nothing more than messing about with your imagination and creativity, whether it be colouring in, scribbling, playing with play doh, lego, smearing paint or squishing clay, i bet you can remember spending hours in the flow of art.

It was an important part of keeping us happy, contented and still and as a child it calmed and relaxed us.

Isn’t it sad then that as we grew older we accepted the fact that it was just a  “nice thing to do”.  and an unimportant thing to continue on with, especially if we thought and were told we were no good at it, there was no money in it or jobs in it.

Why is it that we are being told that our kids need to be creative, that the world needs creative people. that the world is moving so fast that we need the next generations to be able  ‘think outside the box’ .

SO, why is it then that  these are the same people that have stopped art in schools and have put creativity so far down the list of school priorities.

why if it is so important then are kids being taught the same things in school that  my generation were being taught and yet it has never served us.  This is frightening to me.

Making the arts high on our list of priorities is therefore SO important.

I am passionate about the whole process of art, i am passionate about getting as many people as possible to open up their eyes to be creative again, getting everyone to learn how to switch off their left hand critique and learning to listen to their own intuition and their hearts again.

It is vital that we balance our minds in order to lead happy fulfilled content lives, it is my belief that our greatest self-learning and self discovery is in the journey of the things we do, not the destination.

all that runs out of the think purple art studios in south tweed are entirely about enjoying the process of arts and craft allowing people to experience the freedom of their own self expression, there are no rules or ‘how to guides lines’ it is all about playing and having fun with all kinds of art materials.

You will learn to think outside the box and live a balanced happy life that flows.