Trust the process, p.1
Trust the Process, page 1
“McNiff is able to expand the reader’s view of what it means to truly live with the labyrinthine path of the creative spirit, conveying an unlimited sense of the ways of the lived imagination.”
—Common Boundary
“The instructions and insights in this ‘artist’s guide to letting go’ can lead you to creative heights and depths no matter what your medium.”
—Yoga Journal
ABOUT THE BOOK
Whether in painting, poetry, performance, music, dance, or life, there is an intelligence working in every situation. This force is the primary carrier of creation.
If we trust it and follow its natural movement, it will astound us with its ability to find a way through problems—and even make creative use of our mistakes and failures.
There is a magic to this process that cannot be controlled by the ego. Somehow it always finds the way to the place where you need to be, and a destination you never could have known in advance.
When everything seems as if it is hopeless and going nowhere . . . trust the process.
SHAUN MCNIFF is internationally recognized as a founder and leading figure in the arts and healing field. University Professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is past president of the American Art Therapy Association and the author of several other books including Art As Medicine, Trust the Process, and Creating with Others.
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TRUST THE PROCESS
AN ARTIST’S GUIDE TO LETTING GO
SHAUN MCNIFF
SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
2011
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 1998 by Shaun McNiff
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McNiff, Shaun.
Trust the process: an artist’s guide to letting go / Shaun McNiff.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2688-5
ISBN 978-1-57062-357-8 (alk. paper)
1. Creative ability—Psychological aspects. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) 3. Artists—Psychology. I. Title.
N71.M35 1998 97-40182
701′.15—DC21 CIP
For every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
—ECCLESIASTES 3:1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
License to Create
1. Unpredictable Magic
The Wellspring of Movement
Stepping into the Unknown
Emanation
Mistakes and Distortions
2. In the Beginning Is the Attitude
The Many Ways of Creating
The Blank Page
Reframing
Blocks
Moving between Worlds
3. Every Experience Has Something to Offer
Karma of Simple Acts
Distilling
Gathering and Arranging Things
Play and Ornamentation
At Work
Vision
4. Create with What You Already Have
Beginning Close to Home
Creating with the Environment
Childhood Memories and Gifts
5. Practice
Acting and Not Acting
Becoming a Stranger
Repetition
Going On to the Next One
Criticism
Wonder before the Object
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE SUPPORT and insightful dialogue offered by Kendra Crossen Burroughs at Shambhala, my editor of many years. Kendra has been my closest advisor through every phase of this project. The “process” of creating with her has been one of the most rewarding parts of bringing the book to life.
Linda Klein gave an early reading of the manuscript and our discussions ignited many ideas about creation that found their way into the text. Bob Evans is another of my art idea collaborators and I thank him for “license to create” which emerged from one of our conversations.
My children Liam, Kelsey, Elyse, and Avery have been my mentors on childhood imagination.
And thanks to the students, colleagues, and studio workshop participants who have trusted me in the different roles I continue to play as a keeper of the process which never fails to teach us all.
LICENSE TO CREATE
A person’s license to create is irrevocable, and it opens to every corner of daily life. But it is always hard to see that doubt, fear, and indirectness are eternal aspects of the creative path.
WE ARE LIVING IN AN ERA WHEN people hunger for personal relationships with the creative spirit. This desire has generated industries of creative consultation, therapy, teaching, and self-help, all offering support and guidance on how to make the spirits of creation more accessible.
As we begin to express ourselves in movement, painting, creative writing, performance, and other media, there is an almost universal sense of, “I didn’t know I could do this. I never realized what I have inside me.”
Those of us involved in offering opportunities for creative expression to others observe how success involves giving ourselves permission to create. There is a pervasive sense in our culture that creative expression is restricted to an anointed group.
From children’s art we see that everyone carries an inherent license to create. Somehow, through the course of school experience, this freedom is restricted for the majority of people as the identification of “talent” tends to overshadow universal participation. There are many forces at work in the repression of creation, and I do not want to speculate here on all the possible causes. I simply want to declare that a person’s license to create is irrevocable and it opens to every corner of daily life. The ways of creation are as natural as breathing and walking. We live within the process of creation just as much as it exists within us.
The discipline of creation is a mix of surrender and initiative. We let go of inhibitions, which breed rigidity, and we cultivate responsiveness to what is taking shape in the immediate situation. The creative person, like the energy of creation, is always moving. There is an understanding that the process must keep changing.
I have written this book as a guide that is different from the more conventional strategy of laying out a series of steps or developmental stages—the one, two, three, four of creative fulfillment. The elements of creation work together in endless combinations.
I cannot augur the creative spirit’s labyrinthine ways. As a creator, I know that the process doesn’t work that way. It is more unpredictable, complex, perverse, subtle, and intimately associated with the idiosyncratic landscapes of the personal imagination. Creation thrives on inspiration and affirmation rather than direction. When approached through explanation, the creative spirits fly away beyond our grasp.
Travelers through the process of creation also realize that the truly essential spirits are experienced “on the way.” Once we arrive, the pleasures are usually attached to reflections on how we got there. And if there is a feeling of satisfaction, it is likely to be ephemeral, since the creative spirit longs to get onto the road again, to create anew.
I hope to convey an unlimited sense of the “ways” of the creative spirit. I practice many different disciplines—painting, writing, movement, drumming, and performance—and each one invariably leads to another. This is a text dedicated to like-minded travelers who admire all of the different spiritual disciplines but can never stay in one place and be one thing alone.
Although creativity has regimental and formal aspects, its deep and transformative movements are more circuitous. Training in creativity requires the ability to relax in periods of uncertainty and to trust that the creative intelligence will find its way. The education of imagination involves giving up what I call “ego” control. It requires an inclination to step into the unknown as well as the ability to persist when there is no end in sight. The ways of creation are often paradoxical. When you think there is nothing going on, something comes to you, and when you want something desperately, it’s never there. Imagination thrives on the turning of tables, and its most successful products are often contrary to initial intentions.
Experience with the creative process reveals that results “happen” through an orchestration of dynamic forces moving in a given situation. For example, when I begin a painting, I try to empty myself of preconceptions, and I move in a way that corresponds to the feelings of the moment. The images of the painting emanate from the motions and energies of the specific time and place.
I can never know in advance what will appear, because I discover what is going on inside me through the process of painting. Like a beginner, I feel surprise and wonder as the picture takes shape. In this respect I always strive to be a novice, a person who is experiencing creation for the “first time.” Even the most repetitious rituals and patterns of expression can be viewed anew within the unique context of the moment.
We can define the process of creation as a force and a d irection that take shape over a period of time. “Process” suggests a series of actions, changes, and fluctuations. There is an incremental quality to process, and creative results are often achieved by making connections between previously unrelated areas.
Although order, regulation, and planning have important roles in the making of art, the total process of creation is permeated by hidden turns, elusive searches, and subtle appearances. Messages may be cryptic as well as overt; complex and very simple. The process is a route; sometimes it is tangled and at other times it opens to us with the directness, speed, and pleasure of a water slide.
The practice of imagination requires an ongoing interplay between many different and often contradictory elements. It is a gathering of forces, and the skilled creator knows when to plan and when to check this intelligence at the door. I believe that creativity is an intelligence that is broader than the experience of an individual person acting alone. It is an energy that exists within an environment, and as an artist I strive to collaborate with it. The notion of “process” suggests a multiplicity of components with independent ways. But the word also carries within itself a sense of unity, a faith that all of our experiences gather together in a creative process that ultimately knows where it needs to go.
In his classic text, Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead affirmed that the ultimate goal of the creative process is an “enlargement” of imagination for all people. Yet, instead of expanding, most of us tend to confine ourselves to the limitations of habit. In my experience as a teacher I find that the most consistent obstacle to creative discovery is the average person’s reluctance to become involved in free experimentation. The enlargement of imagination is a more challenging task than we may realize.
Trust the Process is a book for those who long to expand their perspectives on creation. Most of the time we will not know exactly where we are going, and in the art studio this is a laudable goal. Consequently, descriptions of the creative process are remembrances of things that we have done. When we examine life from this perspective, we see that there is a purpose moving through everything we do. The ideas presented in this book are culled from many years of looking back on the process of people creating in diverse situations.
Those who advocate “process-oriented” approaches to creativity typically discourage paying attention to objects and end results. There is a value to doing things wholeheartedly without being attached to what you do. We have all experienced the excesses of self-criticism, the insensitive judgments of others, or the psychological implication that the works say too much about ourselves. But a one-sided disregard for the objects of expression misses the opportunity to look with hindsight at the things that we have made. In addition to offering suggestions and hints for expression, this book will help you to look at objects in new ways. The offspring of the creative process are resting places that contain the unity of the different things generating them. Artistic images are guides and sources of illumination. There is a time for making and a time for contemplative looking. The creative process has many phases, and each makes its contributions to the whole.
By focusing on “the basics” that underlie every aspect of creation, I have tried to create a practical guide for beginners as well as experienced artists. The beginner wants to know how to start and keep the process moving, while experienced creators need to regain this same fundamental understanding that is somehow lost and obscured through practice. I strive to give a concrete sense of “how to do it” without telling the reader what to do because the depths and mysteries of creation elude containment of any kind. The process of creation can only be described in subtle ways through glimpses of its movements, which are always a step ahead of the reflecting mind.
My descriptions of the creative process draw from my personal experiences as a painter and my twenty-eight years of working as a creative arts therapist where I have focused on helping people who desire to become more involved with the creative spirit. My practice ranges from beginners to prominent artists who have taught me that there are basic principles that apply to every level of creativity. I have integrated the total range of art forms throughout my career, so my examples will refer to performance, creative writing, vocal and musical improvisation, body movement, sculpture, and environmental art as well as painting. My experience shows that these different art forms are always energizing and supporting one another in a creative ecology that extends to every aspect of daily life. Since creative work in the studio is not far removed from what we do at our jobs and in our families and other personal relationships, this book strives to make connections among the full gamut of creative possibilities. Trust the Process is a reflection on creative living as well as art.
To begin with, I establish a basic framework for artistic practice and offer suggestions as to how the reader can work with various artistic media. In the following parts of the book, I continue to give ways of exercising the creative spirit with different art forms, but I also expand the scope of practice to daily life.
My lifelong passion has been an integrative practice of creativity that combines all of the arts. I cannot resist the urge to move from painting, to creative writing, to performance art, to the office, and then back to painting again. If the reader can tolerate this broad vision and my incurable desire to see the creative spirit in every corner of existence, then this book may contribute to the enlargement of imagination. I want to make lively connections among things, and it is the process of creation that binds it all together.
Since many of the exercises and practical suggestions offered in this book focus on painting and drawing, readers who are not currently involved in the arts might be interested in setting up a workspace in their homes. Many artists prefer painting and drawing on walls rather than easels. Find an open wall in your home and use it as a surface onto which you can fasten canvas and paper. Artists will often attach a four- by eight-foot piece of Homesote board to a wall, paint it white or the color of the wall, and then use it as a work area. An artist friend of mine who is a college dean just installed this type of work area in her office so she can create on the job. The paint-covered surface makes an aesthetic contribution to the room. It says to the visitor, “This is a place of creation.”
When working on paper, run masking tape evenly around the edges, covering the painting area by three-eighths to one-half of an inch, or simply tack or staple the paper to the supporting surface. Canvas can be tacked or stapled to the work surface and stretched afterward. I like to work with a large easel in my studio but the average household might not be able to accommodate this type of structure. I place a firm piece of plywood on the easel when I want to make a drawing. You might consider using a hollow door as a painting surface in your room. The door can be leaned against a wall, and you can slide it under a bed when you are not working.
Good lighting is one of the most important qualities of an art room. Try to keep as much open space as possible around your painting and drawing area so that you can experiment with movement exercises described in the book. Keep writing materials and musical instruments nearby so that you can move between media.
If your work room is a multipurpose space, make storage areas and containers for oil sticks, pastels, pencils, inks, paints, brushes, pencils, and other supplies. Close access to water and a sink is always helpful. If you work with oils, ventilation is important. A nearby window is the simplest solution.
Setting up the workspace is a vital part of the creative process, since the environment has a significant impact on expression. A personal place of creation is a grounding influence and a partner through every phase of expression. I envision the studio as a nucleus of creation, a source from which creative experience flows outward to other areas of life and the place to which it returns again. I maintain my artistic workspace as a sanctuary, a place at home where creative expression is nourished and regenerated.
Start by setting up your space.
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UNPREDICTABLE MAGIC
There have been so many times when I have given up, only to go at it again the next day, or the next year, and over the full course of a life all of the moments appear so purposeful or even necessary.
