The Artists' Way Review -- The first weeks

The Artists' Way, for those who've been living in a cave, is a book by Julia Cameron about accessing your creativity to make art. It's particularly geared toward "blocked" artists. Those people who have a creative urge but who have trouble accessing or articulating it. This includes people who've stopped creating art, those who never have but feel like they'd like to, and those who do but are in the wrong area or who are unable to break out of a particular mold or niche.

The book is fundamentally a workbook, meant to be used over the course of 12 weeks. In addition to weekly exercises (many of which are of the writing and thinking varieties) the primary work of the book includes morning pages and artist dates. Morning pages are three handwritten pages of stream of consciousness dumping each morning. Artist dates are times alone you use to feed your artistic soul (she calls this "filling the well").

First of all, Cameron spends quite a bit of time selling the idea of morning pages (not to be confused with mourning pages, though they can be pretty whiny). I'm not the audience for that argument. You don't have to convince me of the efficacy of writing out thoughts and feelings. I have long experience with journaling of various types in order to do what I think of as "homework." This is work given to me by the universe (or more specifically the Deities I work with) to help me grow and improve as a person. This work comes under the heading of "dealing with my baggage," "getting my shit together," and "putting my head on straight."

This kind of journaling is NOT public and not even publishable. It's intensely personal, but in addition it's random, semi-conscious in places, and generally devoid of decent grammar, punctuation, or spelling. So I'm an old hand at processing crap through writing and I know how effective it can be.

The point of them being morning pages is to start the day with a big cleansing brain dump. This is a concept that I can appreciate because I have the same response from a physical perspective. I can't start the day until I have enough time to digest some coffee and get my internal systems moving. Once that happens I'm good to go. If it doesn't, I'm screwed. Cameron describes how once you get into the habit of writing morning pages if you miss them you start to feel antsy and anxious and bloated and... well, constipated?

The concept of an artist date is something that's particularly interesting. The idea that to produce creatively, you have to have some creative consumption. Some fuel for the creative fire if you will. I think that makes a lot of sense and really cautions us not only to keep our fire stoked, but to be conscious of what we feed it with.

She also talks about finding our true or authentic selves and that the process of accessing our inner artist will help us define that. She mentions examples where people are motivated to get rid of old or ill fitting clothes (and other life trappings) as well as give themselves the things they truly need. This can be as banal as new socks or as esoteric as some major spiritual pilgrimage. I have been able to see this type of cleansing happen in my own life. As I work on homework and make important and positive changes, I'm also moved to clean and sort, get rid of clutter, and change things. Even surface changes (like hair or clothes) can be a symbol of major inner shifts. And the truth is that while we're all busy overeating and overindulging on media and entertainment, we often completely neglect the things we truly need.

An example from my own life is that I need socks. I need warm bundle socks for around the house and I need warm knee high socks for riding. Socks? Yeah, not a big deal, right. But it's easy to postpone those small nurturing things in the general sturm and drang of our day-to-day lives.

In general Cameron has a lot of useful and usable information to impart. Lots of discussion on negative thoughts and ideas as well as tools and techniques for turning those around (affirmations among other things).

Finally, she talks a lot about coincidence / serendipity / synchronicity. The idea that once you ask the universe for something that you want and make the first tentative steps toward it, it often responds by open some door for you or throwing some opportunity right in your lap. The response? Often we freak out and slam the door shut again. Or we stand up and brush ourselves off frantically. Amusing but also sad because it's true.

So how am I finding the book so far? Well, overall it's good. Useful for right action and good food for thought. Some of the exercises seem geared more toward those for whom introspection is a new habit. I'm just the opposite. I spend a whole lot of time peering at myself... what I need help with is the experiential aspect being an artist. So I might adjust that. Fortunately, Cameron isn't dogmatic about much other than the morning pages and artist dates. She's willing to let different people have their own way and their own approach.

Cameron frequently cautions her readers to be gentle with themselves. That they are in a healing process and beating themselves up over not healing fast enough doesn't help anything. She also talks about the kinds of people you choose to share with. According to her, people who get a lot of mileage out of being blocked will often self-sabotage by blabbing about or showing their tentative first efforts to people who they know are going to be unsympathetic. Instead we should be forgiving and gentle, nurturing and attentive to ourselves and our needs (the morning pages being primarily a self-listening trick). Through this process we are able to access creativity and make art.

I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with similar issues. It does take work. Like most things worth doing, it requires some effort, but the efforts are allowed to be loving and fun and flexible and expansive. No self-flagellation allowed. And even if you don't make it through 12 weeks (I don't know at this point whether I will) you will find something of value here.