Category: Reflections

I recently decided that it is time for me to move  into semi-retirement!  With the decision came an inspiration to resurrect this website that I set up in 2004 but consequently stopped using.

I love the name Creative Renewal. All innovation, personal growth and generally life is about the ability to renew and regenerate.  This is the primary creative power of human beings – to find creative ways to meet current challenges and adapt to changing times.

I see this site as both a place where I can expand my development through daring to post my ideas and my own art work.  And a place to encourage and inspire people who may long for deeper contact with themselves and others.

The emphasis here will be on nourishing the soul and the heart. Our hectic lives, filled to bursting with daily tasks, can feel dry and dusty, thirsty for  the quieter elements beneath the surface of things.

With ideas for practicing creative writing, resources, inspirational poems, creative art work, plus the potential for coaching that reaches out to the creative and resourceful essence of self, I hope to contribute joy, wisdom and love in everyday life.

I’ve been reading Shaun McNiff’s newest book called “Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul”.

It came into my life just when my soul needed healing! After our vacation was extended by two months because my husband ended up with a quadruple bypass while we were in the States, I returned to Norway rather exhausted.

Funny enough I had begun sketching again after many years – just a few minutes or so when I got a chance. My energy began to return and I found my mind clearing. More than that I felt a sense of nourishment and self-contact that I hadn’t felt for a long time.

Healing is a new word to use in connection with art making and I am curious about it. I begin to wonder if healing happens when a group of people make a drawing together as they often do in the workshops that I run. A lot of energy is certainly released and often laughter with it.

There is a lot of talk in Norway about how to reduce all the sick leave that seems to have taken over business. Could making art have an effect in this area? I have often wondered if the tough business environment we live in today leaves the soul thirsty and tired along with the body. Perhaps art making engages the imagination and brings some right brain bring into a left brain world.

I continue to watch my own process and read more in Art Heals.

originally written in 2004