Workshop Helped Participants Find Their Inner Artist

By Nancy K. Crevier

How long has it been since someone placed a giant sheet of white paper in front of you, a rainbow of tempera paint colors, handed you a giant paintbrush, and told you to paint whatever you wanted, to play with the paints? For many people over the age of 10, it has been more than a few years.

But on Tuesday evening, November 15, a dozen women joined artist, facilitator and spiritual guide Pamela Hochstetter at C.H. Booth Library to play with paint and find their inner artist. Gathered in the meeting room of the library, the Bridgewater artist and director of InnerArt led participants through the technique of Process Painting, a method for developing an individual’s creativity and potential through dialogue, meditation, and painting.

Ms Hochstetter has been an artist all of her life and earned her bachelor of science in art and education at Western Connecticut State University. She is a 1991 graduate of Yale University Divinity School with a Master in Divinity degree, as well. She trained with art therapist Jane Gross, a licensed clinical social worker, but is quick to explain that Process Painting, while therapeutic, is not art therapy.

“Art therapy,” she said, “involves psychoanalysis, which I do not do.”

Process Painting is instead a guided journey designed to open up a person’s creative forces, she said, enabling them to better enjoy daily routines, decision-making, personal relationships, and to further creativity. She referred to the process as “an interior revitalization” and as a way to “light the fire within” the individual.

Despite the aura of spirituality she brings to the classroom, Ms Hochstetter is not an ordained minister. She was in line for ordination when a serious, life-threatening illness sidelined her from 1992 to 1998.

“The illness gave me time for introspection,” she said. “I decided not to be ordained, but to follow another spiritual path. Art and doing art in this way — opening oneself — allows me to contact ‘Other.’”

For one who has graduated from a school of divinity, her spiritual path has wandered from the norm. As a matter of fact, she has integrated many belief systems into her personal spiritual journey, including the teachings of Buddha. Her artistic, personal, and spiritual experiences have all played a part in the development of this introspective technique to self-discovery.

So how does one unlock the inner artist if the outer artist has not held a paintbrush or a pencil in years? The Tuesday night program clearly demonstrated that being “artistic” is not necessary to release the creative spirit.

Class members first shared with Ms Hochstetter and each other their reasons for choosing to be at the class, reasons that ranged from re-creation to seeking new energy and rekindling artistic passions. At that time, Ms Hochstetter reassured the group that what they were about to do was “all about the process and not about the product. Invite chaos in and see what beauty comes of it.”

A guided breathing meditation preceded a 45-minute period of free-painting, the use of color, style and form left completely to the individual.

“Try to lose yourself as much as possible in the process,” encouraged Ms Hochstetter. “I’m asking you to feel what colors have a special feel to you this evening. What does the brush feel like in your hand?”

She warned that what would be difficult for most would be the need to create an identifiable piece, to define what they painted, rather than let go of inhibitions and simply “play” with the paint.

“Rip the paper in two, in an irregular way,” she instructed the group as they began their journey. “Keep your hand and your eye and your heart involved in the work you are doing tonight. Creating a space with the right intention can open you up to a spiritual experience. Don’t be surprised if there are actual physical manifestations. You might feel chills, tears, or that ‘aha!’ feeling,” she cautioned.

She demanded only two things: Fill the whole paper with paint (“I don’t want to see naked paper,” she said) and Paint for the entire 45 minutes.

Standing (“Its an active, body-engaged process,” the instructor reminded the group), eyes focused on the blank papers in front of them, soon only the sound of paint brushes swishing, swiping, dabbing, dripping, and spattering filled the room. Occasionally, Ms Hochstetter offered quiet suggestions to the artists, “Turning your picture as you work can be very interesting. Life is kinetic, why keep the paper in the same direction?”

To one woman she whispered, “Do something you wouldn’t do. Put some paint on your wrist and rub it. Whatever you want. Play.”

“I feel like I should be making something,” murmured a painter, and Ms Hochstetter nodded wryly. “It can be hard to let go,” she noted.

The 45 minutes passed swiftly, all agreed, when playtime was over. The display of rich, spontaneous paintings spread across the tables showed widely varying results, about which Ms Hochstetter advised the class to be “cautiously self-protective if you feel you’ve at all had a breakthrough of any kind. Be careful whom you share this with. You could walk into a situation that could put a lid on what you’ve done tonight.”

Even in sharing with each other, the class was admonished to be neither positive nor negative about another’s work, talking instead about the process and supporting one another.

As she left the class, one woman remarked, “I used to draw and paint when I was younger. I want to keep painting now, it’s so relaxing. I hope I make the time for it.” Others nodded in agreement.

Certainly hearts were opened, achieving Ms Hochstetter’s goal.