When I first started offering my Wild Heart Painting classes in my Oakland, CA studio, the walls of the studio were covered with what I was calling easels. But they are not what people would think of as conventional easels.

They were basically 4 x 8 pieces of low density fiberboard that were primarily used in building construction. The intuitive painting process uses large pieces of high quality bookbinding paper and tempera paints instead of canvas, acrylic and conventional easels. And the way that the paper gets attached to the fiberboard easels is with pushpins. Also, the paper I was using… which was essentially 24 x 36 inches… was way too big for most conventional easels.

So everyone who came to paint with me essentially got one of the HUGE easels to paint on. And one large piece of paper.

Once you walked into my studio, the invitation was to go BIG from the very first brushstroke. Some people found this initially intimidating and couldn’t imagine how they could ever possibly fill this huge expanse of white paper. But once they got into the groove of painting and felt more and more confident something interesting started to happen. Instead of shrinking in the face of this larger space many of these women felt an increasing urge to get even BIGGER. One of the great things about using paper instead of the more traditional bound canvas boards is that , if the spirit moved you, you could tape pieces of paper together to allow for an even more expanded painting surface.

So over time, my students paintings began to take up more and more space. Now who I work with is primarily women. That is the population most interested in and open to this type of painting process for self discovery. I will have a stray, brave guy show up occasionally, but my classes are generally filled with women.

And what started happening was that these women began getting very intrigued and excited about this experiment with finding their edges. And going beyond them. I could see THEM expand within themselves as their paintings grew and grew and grew, filling up with all kinds of color and images, shapes and worlds.

As the paintings got bigger, THEY got bigger inside themselves, and could hardly believe how much energy and wildness and creativity lived inside their psyches and souls and bodies. Each painting was a revelation and a risk. Each painting was an invitation to even MORE boldness. More daring. More unabashed defiance of the cultural norms they all grew up with telling them that good women stay small and unassuming and only use their life force energy in service for others. Never, ever, ever just for themselves. Never just for their own creative impulses and pleasure and play.

They were challenging those unconscious patriarchal rules that taught them from a very early age that it wasn’t safe to shine or be seen for just being themselves. Every brushstroke and new piece of paper was knocking down the inner scaffolding upholding deeply ingrained psychological patterns of self effacing obedience. They were no longer unconsciously advocating for their internalized oppression.

They were learning to stop listening to those internal voices screaming at them things like “Who do you think you are? What’s wrong with you? What makes you so special? Nobody wants to hear what you think or feel or say. ”

And on and on and on.

But it wasn’t just the big easels and the invitation to take up as much space as possible that allowed for this powerful healing and transformation. It was also the permission and encouragement provided by the facilitators and other members of the creative circle to throw off these ancient patriarchal shackles.

It was being immersed in a community that valued women’s bigness and bravery and truth. It was being in a place where the support to BE that big was unequivocal. It was the safety they experienced knowing that their experiments with being more and more themselves would be met with cheering on and joyful acceptance instead of put downs, fault finding, disapproval and criticisms.

In this sacred studio temple devoted to the epic unfurling of the feminine spirit through paint and paper they were unlearning shame and relearning worthiness. With every brushstroke and every opportunity to add yet ANOTHER piece of paper to their ever expanding painting … and soul.. they were learning to choose themselves. And to choose themselves first.

They were not only supported to be as full of themselves as they wanted to be, but they could also feel a sense of belonging in this circle of creative women who were ALL taking the same risks. And being supported in all the same beautiful ways. This was a club that they would NOT get kicked out of by being hugely themselves.

They were breaking centuries old familial and cultural survival rules around the mandate to stay in their place. And this place they were expected to inhabit without complaint didn’t give them hardly any room to move. Their place meant being nice. And pretty. And sweet. And small and unoffensive.

In other words, a child.

But a full grown woman ROARS. And Rages. And swaggers when the mood takes her. A full grown woman breaks the rules that are inherently unjust and unfair and that uphold patriarchal systems of oppression. A full grown woman looks you in the eye and says what she thinks and feels even if her opinion is unpopular. Or someone doesn’t approve. A full grown woman is in touch with her desire and her hungers. She knows what she wants and is not afraid to go for it.

A full grown woman is connected to her individual power. She is grounded in her unique sense of presence. She is fierce AND compassionate. Serious AND playful. Full of feeling. Deeply embodied. Creatively alive. Spiritually awake. Confident in her intuition And unafraid to claim her own hard won wisdom.

At core, this practice of taking up space at the easel in a circle of creatives committed to ALSO taking up space is a practice of freedom and liberation from centuries of abuse, denigration, and judgement. Painting in this way, they were no longer invisible but expressing themselves fully in living color.

Those big easels became sacred portals into another dimension and so even when I expanded my business to include retreats in other places I always made sure that whatever retreat venue I chose could accommodate those easels.

The Oakland studio is now gone, sadly closed during the Covid pandemic. But I still have a couple of studios where I offer my in-person retreats. And these studios ALWAYS have room for those magical easels and their ongoing invitation for a woman to become freer than she could ever have imagined, by being invited into the no-holds barred expansiveness of her own creative soul.