My Process Paintings
2006 - 2008

I returned to teaching and group process painting in August of 2006 at The Painting Place in Santa Rosa, CA. At that time, my mother was at the end of her radiation treatment for breast cancer. Though my mother survived the cancer and treatment, my father unexpectedly died a few months later in November of 2006 - 2 weeks before I was to be married. These paintings helped me survive. I continued to paint every monday through the ending of the studio in July of 2007. I painted in Esalen with Michele Casso for a week in August of 2007 and up until the birth of my daughter Addie in December of 2007. (Madonna with Child was the last painting completedin the spring of 2008.)

What is Process Painting?

"If you find yourself falling - DIVE!" - Joseph Campbell

As you will discover, in the world of process painting Nothing is Off-limits. Painting is a physical act of the body. Images are the language of the soul and the unconscious. By painting, one is giving physical expression to the soul - releasing stuck energy. Your don't interpret your work or others, during or after. You simply pay attention to what you are feeling in the moment and focus on the present. The experience happens in the process of painting. Sometimes a whole painting is for one moment, one realization, one insight, one feeling or one taste. Begin to tap into your own unexplored world of mystery and feeling. As you being to paint energy will start to move and become available to you in your daily life. Process-painting, or any other process-based expressive work is about being where you are in that particular moment, feeling what you feel and learning to play again and be spontaneous. At some point, you knew how to paint. It's about reconnecting to that - and bringing it back into your life.

CREATIVITY

"What we see as humans is just the surface of a vast invisible ocean." - Caroline W. Casey

We all embody the conscious and the unconscious, the visible and the hidden. These active dynamic forces dance within each of us and connect us to all of life. To become self-possessed you must find your own rhythm and connect to your own passionate self-expression, finding ways to honor all parts of your psyche. What if "time to create" is not simply a luxury, but a necessity? What if the melodrama you live out in your daily life is a symptom of the lack of attention your personal creative self-expression? If you are having a problem considerdance about it, sing it, paint it, draw it, act it, cook it - RITUALIZE IT or you'll live it. To find you path you must dance with the wild forces, learn the art of surrender, get comfortable with not-knowing, step into dreams, create your own mythology, and learn to celebrate life's transitions. This is the essence of ritual.