For most artists, words are like tiny tranquilizers. We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up. Like greasy food, it clogs our system. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.

Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win. The need to win—now!—is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the wo

An Artist Date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist.

“Leap, and the net will appear.” It is my experience both as an artist and as a teacher that when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance.

To effect a creative recovery, we must undergo a time of mourning. In dealing with the suicide of the “nice” self we have been making do with, we find a certain amount of grief to be essential. Our tears prepare the ground for our future growth. Without this creative moistening, we may remain barren. We must allow the bolt of pain to strike us. Rem

Experiment with this two-step process: ask for answers in the evening; listen for answers in the morning. Be open to all help.

So what if you’re tired, crabby, distracted, stressed? Your artist is a child and it needs to be fed. Morning Pages feed your artist child. So write your morning pages.

Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows. As we gain—or regain—our creative identity, we lose the false self we were sustaining. The loss of this false self can feel traumat

The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative