I may be a writer but I have never considered myself to be an artist. In fact my drawing skills are appalling and I can’t even make my handwriting stick to the lines on a page. At school, my art teacher actually told me that in no way was I to study the subject. Yet, for some reason, last year, I kept bumping into Daniella Rubinovitz. There was no way I could ignore the fact that she was an artist because she always attends networking events wearing her paint-spattered navy blue overalls. Anyway, by early December, when I had seen her twice in the same week I took this as a sign that I needed to attend one of her workshops in Amsterdam. Held on a Saturday afternoon, under the eaves of an old school, the class called Inner Images fascinated me.

“Discover inner images through a playful usage of clay, charcoal and paint. After an exercise with clay, you will continue to draw and paint with both your left and right hand (on large format paper),” read the course description. I bit the bullet and booked.

Our first task was to close our eyes and meditate on a sticky, grey ball of clay. I did not enjoy the feeling of the clay in my hands one bit. It felt dirty, like mud, or worse. I found myself shaping it into a wheel, trying to smooth its rough edges and make something that felt cleaner to the touch. It was fascinating to focus on the sense of touch like this, a rare thing for a visual person like me. I learned that I was more of a perfectionist than I realized.

The painting exercise that followed was even more interesting. With no guidelines, nothing to copy and the instruction to paint with our hands on huge canvasses I was terrified. What? No rules? No end in mind? No goal? This was unusual for me. Then the penny dropped. When I teach my students to speedwrite, using stream of consciousness writing, I too give them no guide, no rules. I tell them to ‘just go’. Many find that just as difficult and daunting as I did that day, faced with a blank sheet and three blobs of primary coloured acrylic paint on an old square of formica.

To start with, I had a goal. I would try to paint a landscape. Yet the colours were wrong, the things I tried to depict did not look as I intended. I tried to mix my favourite azure blue and spread it with my fingers over the paper. My hands became thick with paint. Pressing my fingers into blue and white paint that was thick as soft butter made my flesh crawl. I had paint under my fingernails, up my arms, on my face where I’d scratched my chin thoughtfully and in my hair. The harder I tried, the bigger a mess I made. I looked round the room at the other artists. Everyone’s work looked better than mine. And my hands were filthy.

‘Daniella!’ I called. ‘I need help. Mine’s rubbish.’

‘Use a pallet knife to scrape off the layers you don’t like,’ she suggested. So I did. Just as writers have to delete sections of text that don’t work, I could take away bits of my painting.

‘Try this,’ she offered, holding up a cardboard frame. ‘Look at your painting through this. Look through the left eye and then the right. Find a part of the painting that you do like and work with that.’ And she walked away.

Daniella had still not told me what to paint. She’d told me how to see and how to take away. I wanted to be told what to paint. I wanted to be told which bits she liked. Instead I was on my own. But, you know, the frame helped. I did find sections that I liked. Then, disaster.

‘’You have fifteen minutes left,’ Daniella called out.

I panicked. Mine was still terrible. I stood back and looked at the bluey whitey greeny muddle on the paper and the thought came to me that it might benefit from some bright red. I got some red on my fists, closed my eyes and let them land wherever they wanted. I allowed my hands to move instinctively. Not too bad. I stood back and thought, now it needs some black. I daubed on a bit of black and again it was not too bad. With five minutes left I stopped thinking about what I was trying to do and just followed my instinct. I grinned inside. So, this was what losing control was like, was it? I liked it. I was being brave and bold and for once in my creative life I truly had no goal in mind. And, do you know what? I quite like my painting.

Daniella’s workshop opened my mind to how it must feel for any new writer faced with a blank page and told to ‘just write anything’. It’s so long since I felt vulnerable and exposed with a piece of paper, a pen and a deadline, that I now embrace such opportunities and dive in headlong. With art I am a rookie. Out of my comfort zone I felt uncomfortable and stupid. Yet, when I let go, at last, ignored the fact that I did not like my hands being dirty, abandoned any goal, did what felt natural, took away what looked bad and followed my instinct the result was, in my eyes, the best it could be. And, of course, it was what happened in the last 15 minutes that was best of all.

What do you think?

Do something out of your comfort zone this year.

Be creative

Jo

I can hardly believe the journey I’ve had since March’s Inspirer. Physically, I’ve been to Houston to the Families in Global Transition conference for the fifth time and then on to the Virgin Islands to take part in a girls’ sailing trip with a bunch of people I had never met before. So, I guess that counts as one hell of a trip. But the emotional journey I’ve been on has had a greater impact. I told people that I had agreed to the holiday specifically to expand my comfort zone. It worked!

Until three weeks ago I had never spent a single second crewing a boat of any kind. I knew port and starboard meant left and right and that was about it. Yet, there I was, going to crew a 49foot yacht with a bunch of strangers thousands of miles from home. Before I left, I was numb with dread. My greatest fears were that I would be a hopeless sailor, that I’d let everyone down, that my lack of experience would put us in danger. And I was scared that I would be really really scared and unable to simply get off the boat again and go home.

‘Right, then, Jo,’ said Glenda, our skipper. ‘You can be dinghy captain!’ Apparently that’s the job she reserves for the wimps and the lily-livered newbies. I hardly dared admit that I’d never done that either. I’d never even pulled the starter cord on a lawnmower, for goodness sake. I’d never even mowed a lawn! Add that to the fact that I am terminally muscleless, and it is no surprise that I was a jibbering wreck before we even left the harbour. But Glenda would not tolerate a wuss and I had no choice. Dingy captain I would be. And so it was. By George, I did it! What’s more, I was one of only two people who could actually summon the strength to pull that pesky starter cord! The size of the grin on my face as I steered us all to shore once or twice a day was not insignificant.

By the end of the trip the wonderful Glenda had forced me to hold the helm in 20 knot winds, gybe, tack, furl the mainsail, winch, catch moorings and learn about luffing and sheets. And do you know what? I did not make a fool of myself. Not once. My comfort zone expanded wider than the envelope of a hot air balloon and my spirit soared higher than I’d have dreamed possible. In risking that I may have made a complete idiot of myself, I had, in reality achieved the opposite. After that massive feat I began to feel I could conquer the world. Maybe I’ll even learn to ski.

On the day before the sailing trip I took another risk. Again I stood in fear of making a fool of myself. Again I exposed myself as my first book of poetry was published and the proof copy landed in my hands, courtesy of DHL, on the last day of the conference. As I looked down at the cover my kneecaps began to wobble up and down. Just as they had on my wedding day. It was quite something for me to admit that I write poetry. You see, poetry is the ultimate way of showing your weakness. The best writing comes from a place of heightened emotion, so here I was, showing the world that when you cut me I bleed. Filled with fear, and with a nervous smile on my face, I held A Moving Landscape high.

‘I did it!’ I cried. And all around me people clapped me on the back and congratulated me. For though this is my 26th book, it is the first that runs the risk of showing me in my true colours.

Five minutes later, Craig Toedtman, President of Options Resources Careers in PA, blasted that fear out of the water by ordering 200 copies on the spot to give to his clients. He said that it was just what he was looking for. A book that would speak to new expatriates about how it really feels to live abroad.

So now I have taken you on my journey. I have shown you my fears and vulnerability and I have demonstrated, I hope, that it is when we take the biggest risks that we have the chance to achieve the most.

Isn’t it time you let your spirit soar too?

A Moving Landscape, price £10, is available on Amazon.