Finding Your Inner Artist

[christineanderson]

Finding Your Inner Artist

Beethoven used to take walks all the time out in the woods. He loved the trees and the wind and the seasons, and you can hear the magical rhythms of nature in everything he composed. Is it any wonder he left this world in the midst of a fierce thunderstorm? It was March 26th, 1827. Apparently, legend has it that he shook his fists in defiance of the heavens. Divine Punk Rock, Beethoven was. But yeah, nature walks can be so inspiring! It's just you, alone with your thoughts.

For any artist, one of the most important things for us to have is time alone. I'm actually about to post some ideas from my book here in the Songwriting 101 forum, and I've written a lot about quiet time and the importance of creating a personal sanctuary for yourself. Your inner artist is that voice inside your head, and yes, most of us have more than one. Our ideas, our music, our lyrics - everything comes from them. But if we aren't listening, or if we've put ourselves in an environment that is not condusive to limitless and uninterrupted artistic thought, we don't hear our "Muse(s)." You have to be in tune with yourself, you have to be listening, and you also have to stimulate yourself. Nature is a great way to do that.

If you can't take nature walks, or you live on the 47th floor in a concrete jungle, that's okay. Use your imagination instead. Once you successfully build something on your mental landscape, and your imagination starts flowing, you'll realize that you're conversing with your inner artist.

There are some great exercises you can do to get your creative juices flowing, and my favorite is The Orange Method. To do this exercise, you must be able to visualize. You must be able to will an image to appear in your mind, and keep it there. A true visualization will be as clear as a dream - you will literally be able to see pictures, shapes, colors, etc. on your mental landscape, and you will be controlling them. This takes a lot of practice.

The Orange Method: Creative Visualization Technique

What you do is close your eyes and clear your mind of all thoughts. When a thought comes into your mind, just push it away - turn it off. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, slowly and deeply, and begin to build an orange in your mind. You start by making a circle. Notice how round it is. Now give it three dimensions and turn it into a sphere... all this with your imagination, of course. Now give it color - make it orange. And texture - make it dimply, like the skin of an orange. Is there a leaf or a stem? Pull those off and stick your fingernails in the orange and peel the skin off. Does it come off easy? Do you keep it in one single twirly piece or do you pull it off in strips? Peel the orange completely and feel the naked fruit. How does it feel? Pull a wedge from it. Are your fingers juicy? How does it look? How does it smell? Taste it already!! Mmmm! Oh, this orange is delicious!! Proceed to eat every wedge of the orange.

Repeat this exercise every day, twice a day, immediately before songwriting and immediately before bed. This exercise not only assists in the creative process, it prepares the mind for lucid dreaming.

Try not to get too frustrated if you don't see the images you are trying to visualize at first. Just do your best to imagine them, and they may flicker into your visual field for a moment. The more your practice this technique, the better you will get, and the longer you will be able to hold the images in your visual field. I did this exercise every day for several months before I got really good at it.

I don't know if many of you are into quantum physics, but I thought I'd go ahead and mention that after I had been practicing The Orange Method for about a week, I began to notice a LOT of strange, seemingly random occurances of the word/concept "orange" in my daily life: my friend brought me a bag of oranges from her tree; the restaurant where we went for brunch that day had an "orange chicken" special and there were signs that said ORANGE everywhere; the Orange Line was established in Los Angeles the same week, and they put up a huge billboard right outside my house that said "ORANGE"; and the wardrobe girl at the photo shoot I was doing told me "Oh, orange is definitely your color!" These observations, and dozens more, led suggested to me that thinking about something can literally manifest it in the physical world.

Sound like a stretch to you? I don't know if anyone is interested in talking about this type of stuff (Mr. Rose?), but I would be glad to share my thoughts on quantum phsyics and how I believe we can manifest reality and achieve our goals, simply by focusing our creativity and acting with intent.

Hope you guys don't think I'm too nutty!! LoL.

Christine Anderson
www.christineanderson.net