The canvas feels almost as big as my 5 foot tall frame. I know I want to paint a tree. With an excited trepidation I mix a few different browns into long strokes as I tentatively shape the trunk. I had done a lot of art when I was younger, but now in my high school art class I feel a tender hesitancy. Using oil paint was new and not in my wheelhouse. My fist grips the paintbrush anxiously waiting for my art teacher’s gaze as he floats around the room. I am thinking my tree is pretty good, although I’m having some trouble with the branches. He finally approaches me. “Hmmm.. It’s just not quite there Aimee” he says, brown eyes peering through his thick brown glasses. Ugh - a stab in the gut for an insecure 16 year old. My heart sank. In that instant, my hopefulness turned to disgust as I pivoted my anger and frustration back against myself. That shame filled Inner critic became the Queen of Resistance that would keep me from the canvas for the next 25 years.

Last April I went to the art store. I bought a canvas and some large and small brushes. I took a chance and enrolled in an online intentional creativity painting class with Shiloh Sophia. I had been drawn to her colorful deep feminine work for years .. and now was the time. The pandemic shock and being in my early 50’s was awakening me to the fact that life is short, and something new ( or old but untouched for years) felt a little more possible. I was no longer a caregiver for my elderly mother, who had passed away a few years before. I had more space for possibility. However, I also knew that my resistance to picking up a paintbrush had been wearing me down for a long time. Maybe it was time to loosen the grip and try again? 

I picked up the brown handled wooden paintbrush as I faced the blank canvas. It was smooth, with a thick bristly brush head which meant no turning back from wide, very visible brushstrokes. Slightly intimidating for sure.

Suddenly I was 16 again. What was going to happen…? What might come out? What if I didn’t like it? What if I painted something that I hated or that others judged? The pure tension of facing the unknown. What if I made a huge mess and would never want to show it to anyone…? What if I threw the whole canvas away because I couldn’t stand the sight of it? 

Yep, any of these things could happen…. And in that moment I decided I could survive them. It’s amazing how some of these early experiences of rejection or criticism that may seem small can have such reverberation in our lives. The impact of that one sentence from my teacher constricted my relationship to my own creative impulses for years to come. It is also so empowering to know that I can relate to that insecure adolescent from my encouraging adult self who is capable of being kind to her. I know now I can take risks and survive them. 

I gave myself permission to pick the teal green, just because I liked it. Then I mixed in some white because, why not? I could do what I wanted and throw the entire thing away at any time. Full permission, a new frontier opening. 

The paint is flowing, lines circles swishes and swashes. Time slowing down.. my energy lifting, lighter, relaxation, I am alive again. Purple, blue, my inner dialogue says keep going, explore, play with it…words I had been longing to hear for so many years! Magical, I am dancing with my brush and the canvas like improv. Riffing, experimenting, dots and stars, wild unknown shapes, movement and flow, thick and thin, choosing and mixing, changing my mind, letting it happen. 

Alive and free, creating beyond my younger self, but with her too. Giving her permission and encouragement to play. A whole universe unfolding after all of these years. Like a good friend, it had waited, oh so patiently, just for me.