Written by Courtney Snyder
After a group of friends asked me to do a "Collage and Creativity" workshop, I started thinking about what I hope to teach. The technique of paper collage is easy. The bigger challenge, especially for many adults, is learning to think intuitively. Children know immediately what they prefer. Sadly over time, we learn to doubt ourselves and seek answers from the outside.
Intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
Our intuition is our greatest gift. Though severely underused, this tool can be engaged through practice. The best way I know to practice is by creating. We live in a world in which our creativity is outsourced to artists, designers, writers, musicians, chefs... the list goes on. Yet there are endless ways we can create in our daily lives. The benefits are immediate and limitless.
I'll start my workshops with comments about collage..but the same could be said about life.
"You are each going to make a collage on canvas. This, however, won't be about making a product – one that is good or bad or right or wrong. This is about experiencing the creative process.
All that matters is the journey and what you will learn about yourself along the way. Resist thinking of the next three hours as a straight line in which you are headed toward a finish line. Think of the experience as circular. You will be venturing out and a returning to yourself over and over again. You will be making decision after decision about color, patterns, shape, proportion and along the way you'll get feedback and make discoveries.
That feedback won’t come from me (though I'll teach you technique). Nor will it come from your neighbor. It doesn’t matter what we think - we all have different color palettes, patterns and shapes we are drawn to. The goal is find the ones that resonate with you.
After you paint your canvas and choose your papers, you’ll start to cut pieces of paper and lay them on your canvas. Occasionally a piece will immediately work. More often, you’ll end up comparing a couple of options, such as two different colored papers. It will be similar to when your optometrist asks, “Which is better, this one or this one?”
Your guiding voice will be your intuition, that something inside you that will tell you if it works or doesn’t. You will feel a little rush of energy or you will feel unsettled. You might hear, “that’s it” or “something’s not right.” Your biggest obstacle will be thinking.
Decision making and problem solving are essential parts of any creative process. Welcome them rather than avoid them. Each decision sets the stage for later decisions. Trust the process. When you're not sure where you're going, know that the answers will reveal themselves. You can see them more clearly when you’re not looking so hard (ie. shift your attention to another part of the canvas). If you’re feeling especially stuck, you may need to revisit an earlier decision."
The same could be said about any creative process....the same could be said about life with all of it's choices, challenges and unknowns. This is exactly why the act of creating has so much to teach us.