Creative Liberation

Freedom Fierceandtrue

• so I guess you did not have any experience after liberation where you stopped drawing or making art, right?


Nemo

• yeah I did, it was beforehand actually

• and extended for maybe a weeks after, but then the urge came back very strongly.

• I think reading Jed McKenna poisoned me a little, hehe. He helped heaps too of course.


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• hmmm

• well I'm glad you have not stopped

• but I have lost any urge entirely


Nemo

• how come?


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• I have no idea

• my guess is that the identity was really wrapped up in 'being an artist'


Nemo

• yeah I totally get that


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• I feel no motivation to do it now

• but the weird thing is that before, I wasn't able to draw that stuff I showed you unless I was trashed and high

• so it was like I used drugs and alcohol to remove 'my self'

• but now that it's really gone... not a thing


Nemo

• hahaha yeah I used to be like that with my music

• I have a little theory about art and self and liberation

• most people who are artists usually start at a young age

• I did, is this true for you?


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• very young


Nemo

• so, your parents start to praise and encourage your art making

• then you go to school

• your teachers praise you for it

• often your talent makes you stick out from your peers in this department

• so this part of your self image starts developing


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• yup


Nemo

• so, due to all this my urge to make art also diminished significantly, especially in months leading up to liberation

• I desperately needed to separate from everything I thought I was, I nearly even shaved my head, as I've been "the girl with the long red hair" all my life

• then I traced my relationship with art and creativity back to the beginning

• back to when I was a young child

• and it became playtime again

• pure joy

• process over result


Freedom Fierceandtrue

• this is a great investigation

• this is totally helpful!



If somebody asked me what my religion was, I'd probably say Music.


I love to create. Art, music, anything, everything. Opinions aren't worth much, but it is my opinion that creating is important and everyone should be doing it in one way or another. For starters, it can be a great outlet and is hugely cathartic. Secondly, it is an effective form of meditation. Last but not least, it can used as a powerful tool to explore the nature of the ego/narrator/inner critic, and the void alike. Pre-liberation, creating was the time that I had the most direct contact with the void. I believe this is what is meant when people say they "lose themselves" in their music or painting, etc. Most people are scared to be creative due to reproach from their inner critics. This is often made worse the more we try to control the act of creating, the more we think we have control at all.

For a time I facilitated a life-drawing class in which methods were encouraged to help surrender control, for example, having the model hold poses for very short lengths of time, drawing with the non-dominant hand, drawing with both hands, even with eyes closed. These are ways in which one can learn to completely step aside, and allow that space to fill up with the void, thereby achieving direct contact with reality and expression in its purest form.

All anyone can ever do is grab onto a moment and express it while it is happening. The process is far more important than the result. And interestingly enough, approaching art as well as life with this sort of integrity becomes apparent in the results anyway. Any other motives, more often than not, will result in something contrived, and it will be apparent.

This may sound like hippy nonsense, but one way I like to describe the phenomena is; I no longer use a paintbrush, I become the paintbrush. And a paintbrush is not concerned with anything more than the quality of the stroke itself in each moment.

All this can have far greater implications if one perceives playing out the role of self as the grandest of all art forms.

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