Healthy(ish!) – getting arty
aside from being a writer/mum/wife/ cleaning lady to my kids, I am also very arty. At school, I was the ‘arty one’ in my year. I would paint on everything from my friends’ jeans to my homework and bedroom walls. With a degree from St Martins School of Art, I went into magazines because it meant I could write and be creative but still, today, it’s painting and drawing where I totally lose myself. When I have a paintbrush or pencil in my hand, the mental chatter, the to-do lists, the playlist of life ceases. For great expanses of time, I am transported by a creative pause to where time and stress don’t exist. This is what the experts would call ‘creative flow’ – it’s mindfulness at its best.
There have been times in my life where I haven’t picked up a paint brush in 10 years but, as I get older, it calls to me more and more and, in these turbulent times, I have once again felt particularly creative. The reason for this, says life coach Jacqueline Hurst, is that boredom sparks creativity. ‘If we can’t find something, our mind will create something,’ she says. Far from being bored (I’m crazy busy juggling work with homeschooling a teen and a toddler), she says, ‘It’s also when you have more head space or when you are devoid of other distractions, or are in a peaceful place, on a spiritual level, your soul knows what to do.’
Obviously, I’m not about to say that everyone needs to paint an Egon Schiele during lockdown but, if last year’s BBC Arts British Creativity survey is anything to go by, it may well be a wonderful antidote to stress or anxiety during this time. The survey of 50,000 people revealed that creativity can have many emotional benefits, from freeing up mind space to improving self-development. Zena El Farra, who runs Masterpeace.studio, a creative painting workshop in London’s Victoria, says that painting is a form of meditation.
‘Meditation is amazing, but it is hard to do because it’s the antithesis of how we live our busy lives. If you’re not someone who has the patience to sit in silent meditation, then an active form of mindfulness, like painting, will have a similar effect. It will draw your attention away from ruminating thoughts.’ Master Peace is currently rushed off its feet during lockdown, with online art classes as well as its At-home Kits, £25, which come with a canvas, paints, brushes, a palette and an online lesson thrown in.
So many people say to me, ‘I wish I could paint, I’m just not creative.’ This, says Zena, is not true. ‘Everyone is creative,’ she says, ‘but there’s so much pressure to be good at it straight away. It should be much less about the outcome and more about the experience.’ And for those who feel they have a suppressed creativity they don’t use? ‘Come off your iphone and lean into this time,’ says Jacqueline. She quotes personal development coach Dr Wayne Dyer: ‘Never die with the music still inside you.’ There’s no time like the present.
@thesuperdraw @susannahtaylor_