The Artist's Way: Discovering a Sense of Power

Last Tuesday night was the second session of my newest Artist’s Way group. We were discussing Chapter Three: Discovering a Sense of Power. I had asked the ladies to bring items that represented power for them and they brought such varied items as a gavel, money, driver’s license, knitting, and the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is an interesting exercise to choose a physical item that represents a concept.

For our creative activity, we did a favorite of mine. I had each of the women write in their journals about their critic, or their internal censor. They could either write about how it works in their life or what it looks like. After they had written for about five minutes, I had them close their eyes and draw a squiggle over the top of their writing (with no peeking and no lifting of their oil pastel crayon). After they had squiggled away, I had them use any color oil pastel they wanted and asked them to embellish or change their squiggle into something beautiful OR to embellish their drawing so it represented their censor. They were all happily drawing away, listening to the music, when I chimed the bell and asked them to pass their journal to the person on their right. That person then continued with the embellishing, using any color they wanted and doing whatever they wanted to the page. A few minutes later, another bell chime and again they were asked to pass the journals to their right. This continued until all of the journals had circulated and the ladies had their own journal returned to them. Everyone shared what they had done to each of the journals.