Testimonials

What Natalie Goldberg says about Life, Paint & Passion .....

"I have learned much about painting from Stewart and Michell. But learning is not limited to the physical act of applying paint to paper. Through The Painting Experience, I have located crannies of resistance in my mind and opened them up. I've been freed from concepts of inadequacy, from limiting opinions of what's beautiful, from censoring emotions and desires. At one point I bolted from the workshop to finish writing a chapter that had been giving me much difficulty and was suddenly revealed as my brush stroked the paper.
In working with Stewart and Michell, I found I had to give up my idea of what a painting should be: portraying a beautiful scene in a pleasing way. Instead, it is about the alive act of moment-by-moment listening to the flashes of thought at the periphery of perception, and responding in color and form. They taught me what I knew to be true in writing but now had to learn in another medium: that creativity is a process, that it takes practice and intuition, that it is full of surprise and discovery and cannot be known ahead of time.

This book is an extended deep meditation on what it means to be alive and to express one's true being. It is about mining the uncensored self, that part of us that is our life's blood, the true foundation of creativity. I am moved by the writing, which is full of urgency and dedication; Michell and Stewart want share what they know. And they know a lot! This book is thorough, detailed, and leaves no aspect of the force of inspiration and vision untouched. I almost envy them their medium—painting seems so delicious, lush, exuberant. Color seems the gateway to the place where words falter.

Anyone with the desire to create should read this book, for what is written here reaches far into the psyche and the realm of human suffering and delight. It cannot be digested at one sitting, but that is the great luxury of books. This one can and should be read again and again: the first time, perhaps, with surprise; the fourth time maybe for serious study. Life, Paint and Passion provides what every creative spirit thirsts for; a long, slow drink of the experience of the imagination."

- Natalie Goldberg

What Recent Participants Are Saying...

"Your conducting of the Painting Experience workshop with your assistant, Annie Danberg, was masterful! You were able to accomplish a rare task. You both formed and sustained a supportive group feeling of utter safety, focus and creativity. For me, the experience was liberating, full of color, intensity and fun.
It was a perfect vehicle to allow each one of us to encounter and set at a distance our inner voices of self-criticism, self-doubt and timidity while inhabiting the realm of paint and paper and imagination. The experience of a group of people exploring their individual inner worlds generating a community was profoundly moving.

I would strongly recommend the Painting Experience for people seeking access to their imagination and interested in a unique process of self-discovery. I have referred patients to your groups and found that they benefited and will certainly continue to do so."

Best wishes and gratitude,
Alan Leveton, MD

Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of California School of Medicine San Francisco (Retired).
Founder and Past-President, Northern California Association of Family Therapists.
Psychiatric Director of the Family Therapy Center, San Francisco.

"I want to thank you all for setting me free on this path.  I am still not free of JUDGEMENTS about my  paintings. Nonetheless, I set my self free on occasion, turn my hands over to Creator, then sit back and enjoy the ride.  The process sometimes fills me with awe, joy and gratitude.  I am elated, embarrassed, and prideful, when family and friends express their amazement and bewilderment at the paintings that emerge from my time with paper, paint, brush, and Creator.  When they ask me how I manage to create what they see, I assure them that I am as surprised and confounded as they are." 

"I just wanted to say that I am still carrying with me the teaching I experienced at Esalen this spring. Your workshop has been a beautiful piece of a much broader discovery of true self. I continue to marvel at how the universe sends us these pieces as we need them."

"Being back home is different. I am functioning in the world differently... more spontaneously... more honest with myself... and noticing some things, like how I am usually stopped by an inner negativity that lies. I find myself asking myself where the energy is... thinking about completion. I am sure I will be digesting all this for a long time. This process could change the world. Everyone should try it!"

"While showing the Painting Experience DVD to a friend, my 4-year old twin daughters watched with us with intense interest. At the end of the DVD, my daughter, Jordyn, proclaimed "I need my markers!". Both girls grabbed paper and markers and began to color with vigor. I was amazed at the different way Jordyn approached her artwork after viewing the DVD. It instantly changed. She went from simple line drawings of rainbows and hearts, to more organic, free-flowing shapes. When I asked her what was coloring, she replied "It's not about what I am coloring, it is about how I feel when I am coloring it." Completely in awe, I asked, "Well, how do you feel?" She said, "Great. I am coloring the inside of the body. It's my imagination." I could not believe how she got all that from the 10-minute video. What a budding artist within!

An interesting side-note: As Jordyn and I continued discuss her art and "the process", her twin sister told us we were doing "too much talking" about coloring and continued with her simple hearts and flowers. Vive la difference!"

"Last week was one of the deepest and most meaningful experiences of my life.  I'm still feeling the shifts coming like gentle waves around and under and inside of me, hardly detectable on the surface but huge on an  interior, sensory level.  I feel vastly changed, somehow born in a new fragile and highly sensitive form( a soft-shelled crab? a metamorphosing insect?)   It is very exciting and scary to be so open, trying to be aware of the overwhelming energy blast that this enthusiasm seems to bring on right now. I am creeping in the shadows of last week, absorbing, trying to stay in the quiet softness so that I can understand all that is transforming."

"Remember the movie, "Field of Dreams"?  I fantasized that re-entry could be as smooth as the ball players emerging from or seeping back into the cornfield. After all, I had been part of something mysterious, playful, important, that transcended time, the logical world, and the every-day-ness of my life. But reentry was a difficult process. It seemed when I came back to work as if I had been living in color and was returning to gray.

In the movie Joe asks Ray, "Is this Heaven?" and Ray says, "No, it's Iowa."  That's the question, isn't it?  How to bring the mystery and soul into the everyday places I live and work...... I think I've known for years that this was the question, but since the Painting Experience, I'm experiencing it in new, more challenging ways.  You said: "It's about becoming MORE of who you are instead of less." I like that, and it's not so scary.

"I woke up Monday morning to a picture in my mind of shades of violet and found myself apologizing to the color for not exploring it..with a promise that I would sometime soon. These colors have taken on a life of their own...and it appears they are alive and well. What joy."

“The weekend was magical, like being gently caressed and churned under by those gorgeous ocean swells, and carried to deeper & deeper places where nothing is fixed or bound. I find I am bringing more of myself to the table, feeling a little bolder and a little more free, more discerning without demanding, judging, putting down those around me.”

"Unexpected is the way this art process has deepened my attunement to my clients. As I sit with people, as they struggle internally, I keep having flashbacks of myself, standing in front of a blank piece of paper with no idea of what will end up there. Yet I know something will-- just as I know my clients will find their internal path... Quite an amazing experience."

"This workshop is resonating with me still. It is absolutely fascinating how, by just entering in willingness, you can be taken on an incredible journey beyond your conscious control. And end up in something mysterious, shattering, and wonderful.

"Let me share with you one experience in painting since I have come home. I was painting lines and shapes around some paint runs on the paper when THE VOICE came on and said " This is not genuinely from your heart and soul, you are a fraud and you are cheating." Everything stopped. Then I thought, “OK I will paint Cheating.” And as I kept on painting, all these crazy, whimsical creatures started to come out. They were very unexpected and quite charming. I gave them a name: "CHEATERS". Several days later they’re still coming at me!"

"I just wanted to let you know that after taking your painting weekend, I met someone who I fell in love with and am marrying. The interesting thing was, that after looking back at my paintings from that experience, I had actually painted him (after painting through my dark heart!). Thank you for the experience and the wonderful gift!"

"Painting is a front or a tool for me to cultivate deeper listening - sensitivity to something underneath that is moving my life. I‘ve wanted to grab onto it and say, ‘yes this is it, this is my identity’. But it's not, there’s something else that painting is nourishing within me - something that I am responding to and learning to recognize and be receptive to and responsive to..."

"What I took away from the workshop was a deepening of my understanding of the difference between coming from where the energy is and where the idea is.  I immediately want to tie something up in an interpretation of meaning.  I saw how habitual that is and how immediate."

"There are so many levels of growth and spirit cloaked within this simple practice, it truly defies words.  What I feel most drawn to is the sense of experiencing the Divine. I have studied many of the scriptures - especially the Gita. I have tried through meditation to release the ego, and I feel this process is the best way to have that experience for me. I am changed somehow - open, light, more engaged with others. When I left on Sunday I was so filled with bliss I felt as if a river of pure joy was flowing through me. Today it’s a quiet bubbling brook."