Category: In the Studio

What’s happening at Studio Tara Erin? Check here for news, work-in-progress updates, process shares and completed works from my personal studio, student work, classes and events.

Council of Muses, November 2019 Creative Practice

For the month of November 2019, Council of Muses explored the theme of “Patience” as it sustains us in pursuing our goals, including patience with self, with circumstances and with outcomes that might not come as quickly as we would like.

Above all, though, PATIENCE IS NOT PASSIVE – IT IS PERSISTENT!

In this video I share an art journaling practice to help you explore how you can sustain yourself with active roots, sunshine of joy and refreshing rains of self-care while pursuing your dream.

For more information about the Council of Muses creative mastermind program, including monthly support calls and quarterly online retreats, email me at tara@taraerin.com.

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Council of Muses, October 2019 Creative Practice

For the month of October 2019, Council of Muses explored the theme of “Courage” as it relates to accomplishing our goals. Courage is certainly a necessary component of challenging the narrative of your Inner Critic.

In this short, 6-minute video I share an #IntentionalCreativity art journaling practice to help you courageously claim your experiences and skills in service of your dreams.

Program members also enjoyed a wonderful discussion on the theme of Courage, as well as a report out where we shared our accomplishments for October and our commitments for November. If you would like this kind of accountability and support, email me at tara@taraerin.com for more information about joining Council of Muses!

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Pillars of a Creative Life

Several years ago, when I first embarked on the Intentional Creativity journey as a member of the Red Madonna “Queen of the Cosmos” yearlong creative practice group, our teacher Shiloh Sophia asked us to contemplate what she called the “pillars” of our belief. Of the many inquiries we initiated that year, this one has had particular sticking power for me, perhaps because it was one of the first times I began to seriously consider my own inner knowing as a source of authority.

More recently, I’ve found myself revisiting the seven pillars I chose at that time and, much to my surprise, I find that as creativity has moved to the front and center of my approach to life, it has also become a common thread joining the other six qualities in a richly textured weave.

Creativity

To truly live, creativity is essential: everything else is just reading from someone else’s script…even if it was written by your past self.

Love

To live from love is a way of life, and in a world accustomed to operating from fear, creativity is essential to its expression.

Joy

Joy is a byproduct of love-based creativity and a sure sign that I am aligned with my highest path and purpose.

Presence

By being present to the people and situations around me, I open myself to the myriad creative possibilities inherent in every moment.

Intention

From these infinite possibilities, I choose what I want to create in my life, my community and my world with pure intent.

Community

Community exponentially expands individual creative potential. Just imagine a world community creating from love!

Abundance

Abundance is the inevitable result of creating joyfully in community with others, remaining grounded in the energy of loving presence and intent.

The way these principles work seem to me like warp threads through which I can weave the many fibers of thought, word and deed to create a tapestry of great strength and beauty.

Inquiry

Separate from your faith path, what are the values and principles that serve as the warp threads through which you weave your life? Is there one that stands out to you as central to all the others? If so, how?

 

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Imagine 2019

With the exception of 2018 when I completed 5 major paintings for the Color of Woman training program, I have worked on a yearlong painting project each year since 2015. For 2019, my project is based on Shiloh Sophia’s Imagine curriculum. First taught in 2017, its goal is not the creation of an art masterpiece, but the use of creativity to cultivate resiliency and build capacity for thoughtful and creative response to the seemingly endless stream of personal and collective traumas of life.

In truth, these benefits have been evident in all the prior paintings as well, but in this year’s project it feels as if the layer of creating an image has been replaced by a willingness to surrender to the process without any objective other than to code my very experience in paint on canvas. Whatever that might look like.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Variously attributed, but most credibly attributed to Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching
(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1339572-when-the-student-is-ready-the-teacher-will-appear-when)

I began this year’s project a bit later than usual, and am continuing at a pace about a month behind the curriculum. The perfectionist in me might have had quite a lot to say about that in years past, but not so much any more. The more use my creative practice as a tool for personal growth and resilience, the more I realize that everything arrives in its proper time for me. I set the intention, but it progresses at the “pace of grace”. Whenever a lesson is delayed – whether it is a book I want to read, a painting I want to finish, or meeting with an old friend and mentor – I invariably find that when it finally is accomplished, it holds a lesson exactly perfect for that moment.

I invite you to join me here for my “Imagine” journey of 2019…whenever the time is right for you.

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