The Painting Experience Blog
Process Art: Antidote to a Product Oriented World
I recently found myself explaining to a fellow architect who is also a professional painter the difference between product-based painting and process painting. Articulating the difference helped me to understand how profoundly I have been trained to look to “the other” for approval, and how process painting gives me the chance to look inside, instead. [...]
The Courage to Create
Process painting gifts us with many insights and understandings that become landmarks in our own personal journey. It's not a narcissistic activity, as some might think, because by working on ourselves, we are working on the world. In the mirror of painting, our narcissistic tendencies are revealed as creative blocks, and we must emerge from [...]
A Glimpse of the Process
Every painting is unique and the process is different from person to person, day to day, even moment to moment. What follows is an exploration of the development of one painting through the lens of spiritual practice. The beginning of a painting can be many things. This one came without much interest or inspiration. I [...]
Process Painting in the Classroom
This way of painting is about taking risks, having an adventure, being free to explore and try new things. It’s an honor and a privilege for me to facilitate process painting in classrooms: To watch as a child faces the fresh white sheet of paper with a sense of excitement and suspense is to watch [...]
A Few of Our Favorite Videos
We have a big workshop underway at the Esalen Institute this week. So large, in fact, that it outgrew the space where Stewart usually shows films to participants. (If you've been to one of our programs, you know how this works: During a weekend workshop, you'll usually see one video at the end of the [...]
You Can’t Manage the Mystery
The good news is that nothing works. There is simply no way to manage the mystery. The beginning of a painting workshop holds a special poignancy. People of many ages, backgrounds and degrees of experience have committed their time and energy to an inner exploration that’s totally unknown to them. As they gather for the [...]
How Will We Greet This World?
Earlier this month, the facilitators and affiliates of The Painting Experience came together for a week at Still Meadow Retreat Center outside of Portland, Oregon for our annual gathering. This is a time for us to explore the experiences we’ve had during the year leading process painting workshops and classes, as well as to deepen our [...]
Stillness
To look within is an act of courage. To be with yourself exactly where you are can be anything from mundane to blissful to almost intolerably uncomfortable. To be present requires letting go of judgment. In order to truly explore, there needs to be a stillness in which we can begin to let down the [...]
The Illusion of Control
There’s a pointing mechanism in the painting process: When we attempt to control, aliveness and vitality diminish, and this reads back to us through our experience—tiredness, boredom, conflict, and judgment. The illusion of control projects the desired outcome on one side and the feared result on the other. Duality is born before our very eyes. [...]
Facilitating Process Arts: A Guiding Principle
The moment you get into the quest for the Self and begin to go deeper, the real Self is waiting there to receive you, and then whatever is to be done is done by something else and you, as an individual, have no hand in it. ~ Ramana Marharshi With twenty, thirty or even forty [...]