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.

Sunflowers feed my soul.

Here is a photo of one I took last August.  Feeling the warmth of it now!