I recently worked with an artist to guide her out of the creative block she was experiencing. Our initial phone chat revealed that she was feeling unable to work, and was becoming increasingly frustrated as well as worried about her cessation of income due to her creative “dry spell”. She was overwhelmed by a series of difficult life events, and it was affecting her artistic drive. She felt tight and less able than she had in quite some time to lose her “critical voice”. By “critical voice”, I mean the messages we can send to ourselves that each step we take is no good, that somehow it isn’t our best and that our efforts fall short of some perceived expectation. This critical voice was inhibiting her ability to be productive in many facets if her life. Before we hung-up the phone and set up a meeting time, I assured her that this voice would weaken as she became committed to exploring its origins. What I also added silently was that this lousy energy she was experiencing would subside once she started to work with the materials again (this time it would be in my office!) We set a time and date for our first meeting, and I was eager to meet her.
Once in my office, we identified the life events that were clouding her clarity to work. She was able to articulate why these events were feeling so hard to grapple with. She also began to draw parallels between them and her increasing sense of inertia in the studio. Without too much analysis (talking a lot can be another vehicle for the artist to block the creative flow), we “got to work” with the art supplies I had brought, intended to jump-start her creative juices. I have learned that working directly with art materials while I chat with my artist-clients is effective and deeply powerful. Together we can ponder the particular set of troubling circumstances while I am given the luxury of watching them work, without judgment, noticing how they manipulate the materials, which can give me insights into their style, and how they move through a frustrating junctures in each of the exercises I plan.
Practicing psychotherapy while observing the artist at work informs my understanding of their verbal explanations as it concurrently offers the artist an alternative form of communication- often a comfortable one for them. The psychotherapeutic process as many therapists understand it, is transformed. This model of therapy which I have designed enables artists to work in their “language”- their art form, as they dissolve the knots of inertia by talking simultaneously. It is a model that offers the artist a chance to work out the stuck experience of blocked creative flow, and it works.
As our first meeting got underway, I was able to help her identify the life events that were troubling her. Naming and identifying them each separately, eased her anxiety because each event in her life became less daunting. While we did this, I guided her through a series of exercises. These, my initial set, are designed to help loosen-up the artist’s process, free her creativity. They are excellent for releasing those pre-conceived notions of what should be accomplished for The Gallery, The Show, The Class, The Curator, The Commission, The Portfolio, and allow the artist to simply enjoy the materials. It in effect begins to join the artist with her/his voice again, the critical voice is history. The creative process then begins to feel less daunting and more intriguing. It may even begin to feel playful. Play is an important motivating force in the equation of artist, medium, and creative process.
As the sessions continue, I introduce other sets of exercises and follow the artist-client’s lead as to how their productivity is feeling. Once the creative flow is revitalized, and the artist-client feels a renewed sense of creativity and direction, the therapy is done. There is no need to continue the therapy as long as the artist feels ready to plunge back into the studio with a revitalized sense of purpose. This form of therapy is goal- directed and short-term.
In this way, my model of therapy with the artists differs from the model I employ to work with other clients who opt to stay in therapy longer, in order to uncover underlying issues.
Typical binds that I’ve observed artists becoming entangled in are:
1) Boredom with the medium they are familiar with.
2) An un-rest with the subject matter they used to be drawn to.
3) A stuck state of numbness from repeated gallery rejections.
4) Perceived failure at attempting a new technique/medium.
5) A life-crisis brings on a state of numbness.
6) Over-critical analysis of the work leads to a sense of inertia.
Treatment and solution/resolution of any of these dilemmas are individually-defined by the artist. I work with respect and great care to allow the client to define the issues s/he chooses to work on and to use the exercises I suggest only if they seem useful for the artist. I am an artist myself, and therefore I am intimately aware of the power and bleakness of a block. Together, the client and I come up with a treatment plan that feels tangible and attainable. I often give homework assignments involving the artist’s material(s) of choice, and I design a plan that fits the particular set of conflicts which the artist presents. The artist is asked to bring the assignment into our next meeting and we talk while looking at the work. It often helps the artist articulate and recall the set of issues during the assignment as s/he looks at the piece with me. It is a wonderful way to enable the artist to feel reconnected to her/his work and process again.