Art is More Than Meets the Eye

Here’s something I’m wondering: Does your art story continue unbroken beyond elementary school?

I’ve worked with many adults over the years who have said these words to me: “I haven’t made art since kindergarten!”

Which is frankly appalling and unbelievable to me!! Someone said something so hurtful to these people about their creativity when they were children that it caused them to just give up expressing themselves or exploring the world visually after PRIMARY SCHOOL. Sadly, maybe you can relate to this. Major art scars!(For more about art scars and part one of my art story,

Two words that no doubt conjure many conflicting emotions for many of us. For grades 9 and 10, I was just another nerdy-arts-kid nobody, attending a football-oriented Catholic high school. If you weren’t a jock or a cheerleader, you were NOT cool. Somehow I heard about the renowned “bealart” art program at the public high school down the street and decided to apply. Little did I know how this would completely change my life and my art story!

Upon starting in the bealart program, I found myself surrounded by peers who loved art just as much as me. They were not jocks, they dressed weird (like me) and were extremely talented and creative. We got to learn from highly skilled teachers who were artists themselves, who taught us the foundations of the following art mediums:

What other high school offers comprehensive training in all of these areas?! I was learning so much, being given tools to express my creativity in almost any way I could conceive of, AND I was surrounded by like-minded new friends. Looking back, those were some of the most expansive, happiest years of my life!

BUT… suddenly I was not special – not the talented artistic kid anymore. I was just one artist among many, and my confidence began to waiver. My whole life, my identity had been built around being REALLY GOOD at something, and now I was just average. I wasn’t sure what made me special anymore. And that’s when I discovered a book filled with paintings that didn’t look like anything I saw being made in art school:

It was authentic and unabashed. It stirred something inside of me – I had a deep inner knowing awaken when I looked at the images in this book about something I’d never heard of called “Process Painting”. It seemed to be a form of painting where you painted without a plan, moment by moment, staying with the process and letting go of the end product. In art school, everything was about the product!

I’ll never forget bringing the book to school and showing my painting teacher, Mr. Fry.

That was the first time I’d ever heard those words put together – a new concept for my curious, hungry brain. My teacher said those words in disdain like some kind of putdown.

But what he did was plant an already sprouting seed in my fertile mind that would take root and spread out in many directions. I was 18 at the time, and I wouldn’t officially start studying art therapy for another 10 years, but the seed had been planted.

I wanted something more than just creating perfect, aesthetically-pleasing art to be hung on someone’s wall. I wanted the emotion, the meaning, the depth, the healing that I saw in those images in that book, Life, Paint, and Passion (which, by the way, I found in my family home, and to this day no one can say where it came from!).

Thanks for reading this part of my art story. When we look back at the things that sparked something in us, they can hold the key to our inner calling.

When are some key moments when you have felt a strong pull, a strong attraction towards something, even when you can’t explain why?