FearLESS Art Making
“I don’t know how to do art.
I don’t know how to do yoga.”
Lunch included!
I believe in art and the way that it helps shape our brain and express who we are. I feel that art is like yoga—they are both practices that are the product of great presence and help to reveal who we are. This is why I love to sprinkle creativity and art into my yoga offerings and vice versa.
Meet Samantha.
I often think of artists as moody, dour, melancholy, cantankerous… well, this may be for some; but unfair to describe this for all, right? I’ve known real estate agents who can be described the same way. Admit it, HUMAN personality traits run the spectrum of emotions.
But this is not Sam, at least not as a teacher.
She’s funny!
She brings forth self deprecating humor that is relatable.
But what is it about the personality trait of a visual artist that allows us to take risks with expression? Gives us permission to be bold with colors and textures? Endorses our desires to think outside the box allowing our eagerness and hunger to seek our own style of expression (regardless if the expression is of joy or sadness, contentment or anger).
“Yes” was often the answer Sam would provide us when asked about using a specific medium or rolling our tool (this is a paint brush-less workshop) in a certain direction.
We are halfway through the workshop and here are the two paintings I have produced thus far:
We are using salt from the Great Salt Lake, dirt from the original earth pigment of southern Utah, sawdust from the trees that fell during our inland hurricane back in 2020 and metals representative of Utah such as copper and silver. We integrate additional textures of gel and plaster-like materials to provide depth. Our paintings are 3-dimensional and rolled out using a small roller (like what you would use if you were to paint your home) rather than a paint brush.
We’ve all met artists who amaze, inspire and enlighten us — what is it about?
I’m in the middle of a weekend workshop with Samantha daSilva. It is a 10-hour workshop and… I’m in heaven!
It’s called FearLESS Metallics and we’re working with the materials of nature, but specifically, Utah’s nature.
She is asking us to FearLESS while we work
She is asking us to FEARless while we express
She is asking us to be fearless while we live.
It’s wonderful!
FearLESS art-making
From Samantha’s bio:.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Blank canvas flat on the floor. We stare at each other. I touch you. Run my hands over the tight stretched cotton. I smile. I kiss you and say thanks. I squeeze paint onto the canvas. I use a paint roller to move the paint around, blend colors, create lines and shapes. Texture is created by adding: iron-rich Utah dirt, salt from the Great Salt Lake, foraged sawdust, local newspaper, acrylic paint, plaster and metallic pigments to the painted surface.
Water is an intrinsic part of my process. Straight from the tube, acrylic paint is tight, rigid. With the addition of water, the paint relaxes, takes a long, deep breath, begins to move and dance across the canvas. I tilt and manipulate the canvas so that shapes begin to form. I respond to these shapes intuitively. For this reason, my work is never preconceived. I prefer to have the work direct me instead. Fearless Abstract Painting is a process of adding and subtracting to create balance and harmony on the canvas.
My work is a celebration. Once, I identified myself as a victim. Broken, deficient, lacking. Today I am empowered, grateful, anew. Through my work, I attempt to illustrate the redemptive power of choice.
“Inspiration does exist, but it must find you.”
Meet Dr. Betty Edwards
At CSULB, I met Dr. Betty Edwards. She was my art teacher who had recently published the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. She was a soft spoken teacher whose teachings were spent more on the Cerebral Cortex than Chiaroscuro; more on the understanding of neuroscience than of Narrative Art.
Edwards's method of drawing and teaching was revolutionary when she published it in 1979. It received an immediate positive response and is now widely accepted by artists, teachers, and others around the world. Underlying the method is the notion that the brain has two ways of perceiving and processing reality — one verbal and analytic, the other visual and perceptual. Edwards' method advocates suppressing the former in favor of the latter. It focuses on disregarding preconceived notions of what the drawn object should look like, and on individually "seeing.”
I remember Dr. Edwards asked me to draw something from my childhood, something that I remember drawing. I drew Snoopy sleeping on top of his dog house.
I remember her taking an interest in every single one of her students. We were a class of 30, perhaps less, and each one of us were important and made to feel valuable.
She asked us then to draw something from a more recent time period, something current. I had nothin’. I felt like I had not drawn since the day of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Dr. Edwards proceeded to explain that this is probably the time period where I felt criticized for my drawings and my mindset was still stuck in my childhood when it came to drawing with confidence.
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that!” (Yet, somehow, it made a whole lot of sense.)
She then proceeded to take us on a journey from criticized artist to current artist. The end results always surprised us, but never surprised her. She simply felt pleased with the process.
There’s an incredible high that comes with being in the flow of artistic expression. And while yoga is often thought of as a tool to help us find ease in the body, quiet the mind, and get in touch with our true nature, it can also be a way of helping us tap—and mine—our creative selves.
If you are interested in reading more about the connections between Yoga and Art. Here is a great article: BEYOND THE POSE: SURPRISING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN YOGA AND OUR ART
