Welcome to my blog page! I love writing about the healing power of the creative process. Here you will find a collection of all of my writing from all the way back to 2005! Enjoy!
I have a new creative project that I am in the very beginning stages of and it is a big project. It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time and haven't been able to get to because of lack of time and because I couldn't figure out exactly how to make...
I have a new intuitive painting student who has been surprising herself by how often she finds herself asking the question "You mean it's really OK to do that?" This question comes up around simple things like " You mean it's OK to make a mess? Is it really OK to use...
When people come to my classes they often show up because they are enticed by a promise. I find them on my doorstep because they’ve been to my website, or they’ve seen me on social media or read my blog. They come to me believing that what they want are all the...
When I was a kid I absolutely adored Christmas. I loved the twinkly lights and the schmaltzy music but most of all I loved that sense of anticipation and wonder and surprise. My family and I lived in a rowhouse that had three stories and two flights of stairs. On...
One of the things I love about the intuitive painting process is how much it encourages me to go under the surface of things. To explore what I can't always see. To dive into my inner world and try and express visually what is not readily visible. This can sometimes...
This piece is done with my little handy dandy portable water color set, which I love, love, love for traveling. Again, I don't know exactly what to make of this one. It's just another experience of trusting the brush or as one of my students puts it "following orders...
I don't have a dog. In fact my hubby and I don't have any living furry pets at all because we both have pretty severe animal allergies. But we also love animals. And so we have many stuffed animals, carved wooden folk art animals and tons of imaginary friends in our...
My hubby and I are on vacation and right now we're in the town of St. George Utah and visiting the various national and state parks in the area. Yesterday we went to a place called Snow Canyon State Park and today we are going to the world famous Zion National Park....
This piece is a painting using watercolors that I have in a little travel watercolor kit. I'm away on vacation and am in one of my favorite places in the whole world which is the Southwest desert area- Nevada, Utah and Death Valley in California. I have a pretty...
I love how this one felt to do. Even though I have no idea what it is. If I had to identify it I would say that it looks kind of organic- like a flower or plant from another planet. But it was very absorbing and relaxing to create it. I do enjoy letting the pencils or...
I have the great good fortune to be surrounded by many, many amazingly creative people. People that are bursting with creative energy and ideas, talent and enthusiasm. Friends and colleagues who are living wondrously creative lives and by their example are serving as...
This is another one of my pieces that I did with colored pencils which are a total godsend because they are so easy to just whip out and use when I don't have a lot of space or time to set up my paints. First of all, I have no idea what this drawing is about. It's...
Today's a busy day...in fact it's going to be a busy weekend. I'm co-facilitating a new workshop with a friend of mine we're calling Death Rehearsal: A Playfully Reverent Exploration and Artful Preparation For the Final Curtain Call where we will be using creativity...
Whenever I am painting or drawing I often don't start out with any particular idea. I just start moving the brush or the pencils and let the drawing or the painting lead me. It's relaxing and nerve wracking at the same time to create in this way. Relaxing because the...
Today I played around with watercolors in my sketchbook. What showed up is another one of those images that is puzzling to me on a lot of different levels. Although its certainly not the first time THAT has ever happened! I've been going through some serious dental...
I love Mexican and Southwestern folk art and Day Of The Dead stuff. My house is just filled with all kinds of art and figurines that depict those lively skeleton figures. In fact, here's one of the altars that I have in my house. I was so happy to find a Day Of The...
I am participating in something that Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day has developed which is called Art Every Day Month that she hosts during the month of November. The commitment is to do something creative and then post your latest creation on your blog....
YAY for the opportunity to get back into being visually creative on a regular basis. I've been focusing on my writing and my business recently and my painting life has been somewhat on the back burner. So I'm grateful to have the support and encouragement of this...
In my work as a creativity coach I talk with many, many people who want to be more creative, either as a way to deepen their spiritual practice of self nurturing or who have a specific dream that they long to manifest, like writing a book or spending more time in...
It took me 15 years to discover that I had no talent for writing but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. -Robert C. Benchley Who says you have to be any good in order to be creative? The very first (and last) painting class I ever took (which...
About 11 years ago I attended a class at the Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Northern New Mexico for the first time and fell head over heels in love. With the landscape, the culture, the history, the big sky, the silent open spaces. It felt like a homecoming of major...
Somewhere along the line.... and maybe it's just because I've gotten old.... I got kind of burned out on trying to fix myself. I had spent most of my 20's, all of my 30's and half of my 40's trying to get better. To heal old wounds and improve myself so that I could...
I just returned from a fabulous week working with an amazing group of women who have decided to commit their time, money and energy to becoming expressive arts intuitive painting teachers. The teacher training program is a year long and happens in four weekly...
I recently had a pretty amazing synchronistic and serendipitous experience that I wanted to share with you all, partly because I am just excited, but partly because it's such a great example of the ins and outs of the creative process. I've always wanted to see my...
"We're lost but we're making good time." Yogi Berra As I walk through my painting studio on any given day I am sure to hear at least one plaintive cry of " I hate this painting because it doesn't make any sense!" or " I can't believe that I've spent so much...
Like most creative types I have an ongoing love affair with art supplies. It still thrills me no end to go into an art store and walk up and down the aisles looking at the multitudinous tubes and colors of paint, fondling the different sizes and types of brushes,...
I have a friend who is a musician. And more than anything else he wants to write his own songs and eventually put them together on a CD. But it's not really happening. So he is in that particular type of artists hell where the creative longing is terribly insistent...
