Creating Transformation

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Every Wednesday one of my beloved IGNITE Peer Mentors is sharing their creative wisdom and insight as a guest blogger.

IGNITE Peer Mentors are women who successfully completed my IGNITE Online Intensive and are eager to deepen their own skills and intentions as heart guided artists by mentoring a new circle of women in IGNITE. You can check out past Peer Mentor posts by CLICKING HERE.

Today’s IGNITE Peer Mentor Deanna Jinjoe shares her process for filtering through all the negativity that bombards our artist hearts every day.  Such beautiful words of wisdom!

The power of a creative practice to shift and transform never ceases to amaze me.

In this day and age where we are constantly bombarded by images of fear, hatred, and anger, I have learned to guard my energy closely. This isn’t to say I never have a bad day. I struggle with anxiety, fear, and worry just like everyone else, but I consider myself lucky to have what I call my energetic medicine bag and my creative practice is the first thing I grab when energy needs to shift.

Just the other morning I was overwhelmed by what I read in the news — all the hatred disguised as fear that seems to have permeated our media. I felt deep sorrow and my energy became fractured and completely out of of alignment. I knew I didn’t want to take those feelings into my day, so instead I took them to the canvas.

Starting with a blank canvas I wrote out the negative feelings threatening to overwhelm me. Fear, separation, hate, anger, I wrote them all on my canvas with a watercolor crayon. Then I used a combination of water and gesso to completely wash away these negative words and thoughts.

Next I used acrylic paint to put positive words like love, hope and peace on my canvas. I used paint for my words because when dry it is permanent and even though you don’t see the words when the piece is done, the energy will radiate through the piece.

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Then, while softly chanting over and over a message of love, I painted rainbow colors onto the canvas, radiating out from the center. I wanted to infuse this painting with as much love energy as possible. To finish this piece I placed a mandala stencil over the rainbow and then painted a couple layers of white paint over the top, permitting the colors underneath to peek out.

This process allowed me to pour out the negative energy that was threatening to overwhelm me and through my paints and brushes I actually shined my love into the world.

The power of a creative practice to create change is immense. I’ve seen it time and again in my own life. When sorrow, anxiety, or anger threatens to overwhelm it is possible to reach for our paint and brushes and create change.

DeannaJinjoeToday’s Guest Post was written by Deanna Jinjoe, Peer Mentor for IGNITE 2016.  Here is a little about Deanna…

Deanna Jinjoe is a mixed media artist living in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Her mission is to help people understand how a creative practice can change their lives and that ANYONE can create, you don’t have to be a Picasso to create work that is meaningful and beautiful to YOU.

Deanna resides in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada and you can find her online HERE.

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