Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

This is part of an interview series on members of the Mindful Art Studio community who have used art as self-care. You can find all the interviews in this series: 

I’m hoping that you will find inspiration in these amazing stories and motivation to charge up your own art practice. 

Creatively Yours, 

Amy 

AMY: What are your earliest memories of art making, and creating as a child?  What’s the first time you remember feeling inspired?

CYNTHIA: The first project I remember feeling inspired on was in grade school.  The teacher gave each of us a piece of burlap, a large needle and several colors of yarn.  My grandmother had tried to interest me in counted cross-stitch, but I liked the idea of being able to make a picture just by drawing and stitching an outline.  I made a very colorful butterfly.

AMY:  What were the messages that you got as a child about art?

CYNTHIA: My aunt took a lot of pictures and even had a darkroom in her basement.  When I was about four, she gave me an 8″x10″ of a picture she had taken of me, which got me interested in taking pictures.  

I got my first camera while I was still in grade school – an instamatic.  I didn’t think of it as art, but just a way to keep memories.  I considered my older brother an artist because he could draw and played music by ear.  

The person who most encouraged me to explore creativity was my fifth grade teacher, who introduced me to writing poetry and even trying my hand at writing a play.

AMY:  What are your favorite ways to express yourself creatively?  What kind of art do you make?

CYNTHIA: I take photos and do edits of them.  I was very late in moving from film to digital, and find it easiest to just work with the camera on my phone.  After an excursion this spring, I discovered the editing capabilities of the Gallery app on my phone and have really enjoyed playing with that.

AMY: If you’ve ever gone through a period of feeling blocked, or that you don’t have “permission” to make art, how did you find the courage to create again?

CYNTHIA: I used to do some creative writing, but found that I felt I needed to make a story go somewhere, which didn’t do good things for the writing.  

What allowed me to start experimenting with creativity again after that was driving my mom to her cloth doll club.  The leader encouraged me to try a couple of challenges, even though I didn’t sew. I had the fun of working with fabric and embellishments without sewing.  For one challenge I also had to make up a short biography for the doll using the name the doll was given as a point of inspiration.  My dolls were much more primitive than those of the club members, but I got encouragement from them, and that was important.

Let me help you along on your self-care journey. Grab your spot in my e-course, the Guide to Creative Self-Care, for FREE and you will:

• Assess your current self-care strategy
• Dispel myths that are getting in the way of you taking care of YOU
• Set up an art studio at home, even if you think you have no space
• Doodle away your stress
• Discover how to use expressive art techniques to find more calm through mindful art techniques
  

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AMY: What role does art play in your life? How is art self-care for you? Does it help you express, cope or understand your world? Can you explain your process and how you use it?

CYNTHIA: Taking photos and editing them has become a part of the way I cope with depression.  It gives me something to focus on so I don’t spend so much time dwelling on negative thoughts.  

Sometimes I just come across something that I want to take a picture of, but generally I pick a place that I want to go, then look for what interests me.  I take many pictures. I do end up deleting some, but only after I’ve tried and failed to edit them in a way that appeals to me. 

Some days I will just shoot, and leave editing and playing for another time.  On days where I need more distraction, I will keep playing with edits until I have a version of each picture from that day.  I try to vary the effects I use, although there are some I tend to like better than others.

AMY: Are there ever art pieces that scare you? Pieces that you don’t want to complete because they feel too dark, weird, stupid, or “not you?”

CYNTHIA: I wouldn’t say that they scare me so much as I just don’t like them so well.  At one point in my life I was more fond of dark colors, but that’s no longer the case.  Now I prefer brighter colors, so I tend to either undo steps or start over if an edit is getting darker than I like.

AMY: What inspires your art? Who are some of the artists/places/situations that inspire you?

CYNTHIA: I love nature, especially hills or mountains, water in any form, animals (although I don’t have much success in photographing them), and plants, particularly flowers.  I don’t know how much they inspire what I create, but I am most fond of the impressionists.