Conversations with the Brush: Wisdom Tales from the Intuitive Painting Heart

by Chris Zydel

Overview

Conversations with the Brush is a wildly entertaining and inspirational journey into examining the question of how to become more creatively free and alive using intuitive painting and the expressive arts. It's also a deep investigation into the cultural attitudes, unquestioned beliefs and emotional patterns that get in the way of fully embracing that creative freedom and aliveness. It's a book of wisdom teachings about making art, trusting in your intuition and living a fully expressed creative life. To demonstrate these teachings it employs the time-honored tradition of story telling, based on actual conversations that the author has had between herself and her many students over the past twenty-five years of teaching. It also includes a deeper philosophical commentary on each of the stories that reflects upon the underlying creative issues that the stories bring to light and journal questions and creative prompts that allow the reader to engage with the stories as a psychological and spiritual inner-growth process in a more personally engaged and contemplative way.

A wide variety of principles and practices related to creativity and intuition are explored through these stories, questions and commentary.

One of the most important practices is learning how to identify and manage your inner critic when you create and to begin to identify the difference between the nitpicking and faultfinding voice of your judging mind and the joyful permission of your creative muse. Many of the stories provide potently powerful yet playful perspectives on what it means to let go of trying to be perfect and how to release your need to meet external standards for outer approval from others when it comes to making art.

Another essential principle is related to examining our need to be in control when we are creating in order to end up with a particular type of finished product. But this approach to painting and creativity is based on learning how to trust in our spontaneous creative expression and treat our creativity as a living force with a mind of its own. The stories give great examples of what it looks like to take creative risks, to paint without a plan and to begin to release our need to control our art and our life.

To create in this unique and unconventional way means to relinquish our allegiance to letting our minds always run the creative show. The core philosophy of this approach to painting and art-making is based on the idea that creativity lives in the heart, is channeled through the intuition, and is expressed through the body. It's based on the belief that embracing our full creative expression without judgment or expectation is a profound act of radical self-acceptance that leads to an experience of deep self-love and creative liberation.

This book also explores the issue of how to deal with creative resistance and what it looks like to move through stubborn creative blocks using the process of courageous creative inquiry, joyfully breaking internalized art rules, and embracing the idea that there truly are no mistakes when you paint. Its intention is to help readers gain more confidence in trusting in their own imagination and intuitive flow and to become more willing to be brave around their authentic creative expression.

The stories give real-life examples of what it means to be fully present to yourself and your inner experience as you paint, and what it looks like to allow your art-making to be a vehicle for psychological, spiritual and emotional healing. They take the reader into the minds and hearts of the people in the stories, where they can see their own struggles reflected and be inspired to do and try things they have never done before in their own creative process. And finally, the stories are fun to read and a delightful reminder that the true purpose of creativity is to expand our capacity for joy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781736328408
Publisher:	Creative Juices Arts Press
Publication date:	03/20/2021
Pages:	170
Sales rank:	564,181
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

Chris Zydel, MA, (AKA The Wild Heart Queen), is founder of Creative Juices Arts and Painting From The Wild Heart. She has over 40 years experience as a compassionate creativity guide and has been leading groups her whole life ( she is the eldest of eight children) and has been facilitating creativity workshops ever since she was eleven years old when she would organize the neighborhood kids and put on skits, plays and musical events! She has had no formal training as an artist but has led a wildly creative life and has never once regretted choices made by following her heart and her muse. She has a private practice as a creativity coach and an Evolutionary Astrologer, runs women's groups, teaches weekly intuitive painting classes, facilitates expressive arts retreats and has created an expressive arts teacher training program. She lives with her adorable and supportive artist husband in a wildly colorful home that doubles as a full time art studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Devotion to the process of creation is her passion, her medicine, her spiritual practice and my deep soul work. When she's not making art, she spends as much time as possible in the gorgeous beauty of the natural world. She has an ongoing love affair with the mountains, the forests, the ocean and the red rock deserts where she taps into her deep and abiding connection with the healing power of the divine feminine and the holy spaciousness of the wild and sacred heart. She adores her work madly and is never happier than when she is helping people to find their way back to their authentic creative source.

Table of Contents

PART I

INTRODUCTION

1. A Love Note To You

2. What Is Intuitive Painting?

3. How to Use This Book

PART II

STORIES

4. Zen Fish

5. Angel Wings

6. Glitter Fish

7. Anti-Fun

8. Uncomplicated Bald Guy

9. Crash Helmet

10. Creative Weirdsville

11. Discombobulation

12. Empty-Headed Painting

13. No More Leaves

14. More Red

15. Next Week

16. Muppet Death

17. Other Dimensions

18. No Repeating

19. One Brush Clapping

20. Reluctant Pink-Heart Love

21. Scary Red Hearts

22. The Eyes and the Plan

23. The Rock

24. The Third Choice

25. The Trick Question

26. Unhinged

27. Turquoise Snail

28. Which Face

29. Dust Bunnies and Plumping Pillows

30. Art-School Shackles

31. Squirmy

32. The Problem with Pretty

33. New Mexico Sky

34.Weird and Wacky Intuition

35. Green Umbrellas

36. A Brand-New Compass

37. Miracle Healing

38. Be Here Next

39. Throwback Painting

40. Just Do It!

41. Staying Alive

Where It All Began

Always Look For The Helpers

My Creative Manifesto

Editorial Reviews

"This book made me laugh, cry, and most of all, feel so hopeful. As someone

who has made her living as a creative for 30+ years at the same time I've

struggled to create freely, Chris speaks directly to my wild heart and promises

there is always more - more freedom, more color, more truth, more joy.

What a magnificent love letter to our most alive self."

-Jen Louden, author of Why Bother?

"Accessing the recesses of our deep unconscious can be a harrowing undertaking.

Uncertainty and fear flair up alongside excitement and giddiness. But, with Chris

Zydel by your side in front of the white paper, you will feel capable, supported. That

is the story of this remarkable book. A collection of human stories of bravery and

resilience mixed with a good dose of humor and gems of teachings. Chris Zydel is a

master at her craft, polished over decades of presence in utter compassion. This

book will transport you in your own exploration. You will laugh, you will ponder.

You will feel understood."

-Francoise Bourzat, author of Consciousness Medicine

"Working with Chris Zydel, the Wildheart Queen, forever changed the trajectory of

my life. And I, and all my family members who came before, are 'here' now, and

have plans to follow me, are forever grateful. In her ground-breaking book

Conversations with the Brush, Chris offers the reader the knowledge, tools, wisdom,

deep love, healing truth, and authentic-life-lived to co-create, step-by-step, the

radiant life we each came to the planet to live. Thank you, oh wise one with the

beautiful jewelry, kick-ass boots and lighthouse smile for saying YES to life."

-Tom Zuba, author of Permission to Mourn and Becoming Radiant

From the Publisher