Begin where you are….

I tell my students:  "Start with what you know, to get to what you don't know."
It is a reminder to begin where you are, acknowledge where you are at in a process and build off what you know to learn and grow and discover that you can arrive at the place that you didn't know you could get to… ( and this works very logically when helping fourth graders with their math homework…)

I had a recent reminder of this concept weeks ago, when I started doing work for this project.  A friend had agreed to pose for me in my quest to get back into painting and art-making. After getting set up, her husband asked if he could stay and watch the process.  Normally I feel uncomfortable when being watched while sketching, but I found myself using his presence as part of the process.  I know how to be a teacher, having done that for so many years.… I have read and studied enough of artists' process to know what a "real artist" would do to start the painting, and I remember from years ago when I did this more often.  Still, it is always scary to start.  So while he was in the room, I started scribbling on the newsprint with charcoal.. It has been so long since I felt that feeling!  Warming up, making the marks I tore off the first page and began another.. using the marks to guide me… I made a conscious decision to trust the marks on the page.. As I smudged and smeared, I started to describe to my friend's husband what I was seeing in the marks… a few minutes of laying on the charcoal, erasing and smudging revealed a man's back, muscled shoulders and a down turned head.  This came out of the scribbles I was doing on the page, not from observation or anything that I was trying to do… As I allowed my self to teach the process as I understood it to him, I was able to do the process myself.  Trusting that process, I was able to create, and through creating calm my fears about starting.. The next hour was spent working on the pose of his wife where I was actually able to get to the brink of the Zone -- that place where all time and consciousness stops.  Starting doesn't seem quite as scary after that.

So if you are a writer who finds yourself in a block, only able to write down shopping lists and to do lists.. or a musician who can only do chopsticks…. start with that.. begin with what you know, trust it, build from it -- and don't worry about the outcome, trust that process to get to what you don't know, and before long, you will begin to know what you don't know too.