Christine Wykes :: Artist : Sculptor : Neon Light Artwork

This class is about uncovering and releasing your free spirited inner artist: You work unconstrained. You don't have to draw anything at all or produce a work that is anatomically correct. You don't have to know about technique, foreground, background, washes, tones or colour. You work freely and play with colour like a child. You don't have to have working drawings. The paint splashed onto your canvas will be your working drawing, your work in progress, and if you don't like what you produce, just paint over it and begin again. There is no end to the images that arise. I used to think there would be, but after thirty years, I now know there's no end to it; it's unlimited.

I decided to start this class because I paint this way and have done so for a long time. My intention for you is to guide you into having the same experience and through this process, in allowing the 'mystery' to emerge, you may even learn how to 'let go' into life. Working this way is a metaphor for life. Trusting the process that unfolds on paper or on canvas is similar to trusting the process of life. It works better when the ego takes a back seat and allows the images to arise from the unconscious. Life's like that too. In learning to trust the creative process, we relax and let go of control, judgment, our need to work out all the steps and our need for security. We remain in the present moment. You may have a 'block', a fear, a belief that you're not an artist, can't paint, can't draw and there may be emotional blocks too, layers of them. It took years and years before I was free of mind numbing fear before I began a work. I'd stare at the blank canvas too afraid to begin, completely stuck. I had no idea what to do and I wanted to be prepared, to be in control, to know in advance. It was an exercise in overcoming my ego with its fear, comparisons, interpretations, doubt and judgements, and to work from the 'not knowing'. Painting from the heart allows you to be vulnerable and sometimes you may feel uncomforable that your work is on display for others in the class to see. Keep going, because there is a break through that happens.

As a child I loved to paint, draw and read. I was happy in my inner world; a solitary, although richly rewarding place to be. My mum worried about me being such a loner and would invite friends from school to come and stay on our farm. I was told off for refusing to play with them, so slowly I moved out of the house to play in the bush and on the farm. At high school my favourite subjects were the sciences and art. My art teacher loved my works and would ask to keep them; I always gave them to her. Each year our school took part in a poster competition for the Waikato area. I won each year for my particular form and found myself on a bus to Hamilton to attend the award ceremony. I never kept any of my certificates. In fact I won first prize at an exhibition in the early seventies and took the money, but threw out the certificate. I didn't value my artist self.

Throughout the years I kept a lid on my inner artist while I worked to earn a living and raise my children. Over my life I've worked in office administration type roles, managed a motor-inn, worked in sales and merchanizing, but by chance (or so it seemed), I've mainly been employed in the health field. I left school and worked for eighteen months in a pharmacy before training as an Enrolled Nurse at Waikato Hospital. I worked as a nurse for a time in a rest home and was a sales consultant for Southern Cross Medical Healthcare. I was employed by Greenpeace NZ and when I left there, I began my masters degree in Social Work (Applied) at Massey Albany Campus. We were trained in social policy, counselling, community work, Maori studies and management in the social services. My final research paper asked, "What are the psycho-spiritual implications of using creativity as a therapeutic tool in the healing process?"

I was employed as a crisis counsellor on a telephone helpline before moving into health promotion where I rose to the position of national manager. I added various courses to my resume, such as grief therapy training at HD & T; two eight week courses with Creative Healing International (as they were known at the time); short art therapy and massage courses; a hands on healing course called Deep Field Relaxation, also known as Intention in Action (www. deep-field-relaxation); and became a fully accredited Journey Practitioner (which is a simple guided meditation based on the idea that cells retain memories. The process allows for shifts and a letting go of blocks that may hinder you in living as a full expression of who you really are. www.thejourney.com). I've also completed many short courses in art & meditation, life drawing, photography and pottery. I could see that my creativity and history of employment and training in the health field were merging. I was struggling between doing 'art for arts sake' and art as therapy.

Back in New York in 2000, I continued to explore the galleries, art museums and visited the Guggenheim. I left my friends on top of the Empire State building and grabbed a cab (most drivers refused to take me), and went to Brooklyn to the Pratt Institute where I'd pre-arranged an interview with the hope of doing my masters in art therapy, extramurally. I was accepted, but would have had to spend hours and hours on the phone in weekly supervision and fly to New York a minimum of once a year. The expensive would have been prohibitive. I decided not to do it. I have to say that I think 'art for its own sake' is very therapeutic without turning it into a therapy. This doesn't mean that art therapy isn't useful, although there is a definite distinction between the two. Art therapy uses imagery to access the unconscious in a primarily counselling environment. Of course art making also accesses images from the unconscious and working the process, expressing yourself freely can be just as healing in its own way.

In the seventies, I was asked to work as a volunteer for Centre High School in Hamilton, a school for expelled youth, as an artist/therapist while I was doing my degree at the University of Waikato. At the time, I was doing a double major in philosophy and psychology, but eventually majored in philosophy with psychology as my minor. One of my favourite courses at university was East/West psychology and my psychology lecturer, Dr Hamid, suggested I try painting with nothing in mind.
"But nothing will happen", was my reply. "
"Try it anyhow" he suggested.

I used oils in those days. I lay out the various coloured tubes of paint, stared at the blank canvas and experienced huge fear before I began to paint. Sometimes my fear rendered me immobile for hours. When I got tired of being 'stuck', I stirred the paint onto a canvas for days, becoming more and more agitated. It was chaotic. My work looked like a dog had vomited on it. I kept working and swirling the paint and slowly an 'owl face' began to appear. I didn't consciously work out what colours to use; I let the colours choose themselves. I worked quickly and grabbed whatever colour my hand went too. I worked mindlessly. It was difficult to know when the work was completed. I stopped and began another canvas and the owl eyes began to recede and just the faintest hint of 'plant like' images began to appear. I kept painting and the next work was definitely a flower, but only a hint of one. The following work was 'vegetable like' and the fifth work, was a culmination of the previous four works; a dried arrangement of plants with light. I loved it and I couldn't believe my eyes. My conscious mind would never have worked out an idea like that. There is absolute joy in working this way if you can stick with it and overcome your fear and resistances.

I immersed myself in the life of a solo mother, student, and employee, so I only painted here and there. Time passed and I continued to work the same way and produced a large collection of what I called 'organic' works, some of which are on my website today. About four years after my degree was completed, with art school in my sights, I went back to high school and sat UE art in the final year it was offered, 1985. I found out what was happening in the art scene in New Zealand and we studied the masters, and the American artist Jim Dine, Rothko, Francis Bacon and others. My portfolio for UE was cubist using my harp as an inspiration. Cubism came so easily and naturally to me. In fact one of my teachers said, "You've found yourself."
I quipped, "I didn't realize I was missing." We laughed.

The following year, for bursary art, I worked at hanging sticks and shapes to achieve a 3D zig-zag effect. Most of my class attended Ilam art school in at the university in Canterbury. I couldn't afford to move my household down there lock stock and barrel so I stayed in Hamilton, not sure what to do next. I told myself that one day I would attend Elam art school at the University of Auckland. I moved to Auckland in 1987, but I had to work to pay my mortgage. The years passed and I always had to work to earn a living. However, I did eventually have three solo exhibitions and exhibited in many group exhibitions around the North Island.

In 1988, I painted a work then placed it in the garage out back and never looked at it for a year. In 1989, I thought that I should do another 'intutive' work so I picked up the brush and began to paint. As the painting began to take shape, something familiar pricked at my mind. I walked out to the garage and searched for the painting I'd completed the year before. I was shocked to see that they were twins; so very much alike in colour and style that they could have been a pair. I wondered if there was an inner process being worked out on canvas; something below my conscious mind that I wasn't aware of on the surface. I forgot about it because most of my energy was tied up with working to earn money to live.

I set up 'Cris Creations' in 1989, where I produced one off hand painted t-shirts, sweats and jerseys. They sold well but I had to quit because the fumes from the fabric paints made me and my family very sick. I found that the retail outlets doubled the cost of my jerseys thereby making 100% profit, although my profit was small, so I decided I didn't make enough to continue. Later I produced a range of greeting cards, and sold them in a shop and gallery. I was way too busy working very long hours in the health field to go out and promote them.

For five or six years, I designed and produced brochures, posters and booklets as part of my role in health promotion. Various people, including our chairman of the board said my posters ended up on Shortland Street. According to A+ Health Promotion, my skeleton poster was one of their most popular posters ever. In 2006 my daughter phoned, laughing. She'd been to the toilet at her new GP's surgery and while sitting down to pee, she looked up and there on the toilet wall was a poster of her brother looking back at her. I'd designed and mailed to GP's that particular poster and I'd used my son Damon and a colleague, Dr Maria, as models. I attended my daughter's GP surgery with her one day and went to the toilet. Sure enough, there it was. When my sister-in-law died in 2006, a function was held at the Huntly RSA. I was talking to my brother when I spotted a series of my posters produced for Clubs NZ on the wall. I squealed, "Pete, there I am on the wall." He couldn't believe his eyes. I'd been short of a model so jumped in with my wig on because I was going through chemo at the time. I walked around the corner and there were another series of posters I'd seen though to completion about five years previousy.

While employed in health promotion, I worked furiously and to constant deadlines, but at least I was creating something even if it wasn't my own artistic expression. By 2002, my role had expanded to National Manager and I hired someone else to do the creative work. I had an enormous, sunny, light office, with large glass doors that opened onto a large balcony. I'd step outside and gaze across Grafton Gully at Elam Art School at the University of Auckland. I thought I was on the wrong side of the gully. Then by chance I met a lecturer from Elam. We agreed to meet at her studio in the city and I asked her quite seriously if I should go to art school. She said that art school is very intellectual now; people are doing their PhD's in art. We talked about the positives and possible negatives. I'm sure I may have gained a lot from attending art school, however, to date getting there has eldued me. In 1997, I was in Montreal and I explored all the galleries, particularly in Old Montreal. Artists were often working in the gallery and I managed to meet and talk to a few. One guy, Julio from Peru, who exhibited regularly in three galleries in New York said that he'd been to art school in South America and Canada and he fought with his lecturers. He said, "Art is in you heart". I knew that was true. Most of my paintings are more heart and soul than head works. They come from an inner place, a space within that bypasses the mind's chatter. You don't have to be considered an artist to paint from the heart.

There have been paintings that I've planned out with the intellect in the driver's seat and I still like them. There are many works that I also like that I produced by having no idea of what I was doing. These are the truly joyous times, when the work unfolded before my eyes and my intellect was not in the driver's seat; it was firmly in the back seat. Painting this way is like meditation. When focused entirely in the moment, with a still, quiet mind, the works are a genuine surprise and delight. I'm as surprised as anyone that anything at all turns out on the board or canvas. Some of my works I thought ugly. At times someone would ask to purchase one of those 'ugly' paintings, surprising me all over again. Sometimes I'd paint over them or throw them away and start again on a fresh canvas.

I get such joy from creating. It's my favourite thing. Often, I'd cut into a board and have pieces flying up and over the wall; usually when I have an urge to break out of the square. In my early days of painting, I used to dream works and get up and reproduce them. At other times, an idea would just come to me. Today I have no idea of what I'm about to do, or I see a half or semi-completed work in my 'minds eye', flashed to me out of 'left field', quite literally. I had one of those 'flashes' recently and completed the work titled 'Emerging'. If I have a flash of inspiration I begin to create and the work forms in front of my eyes. I'm usually surprised and delighted with the finished result. You don't have to wait for inspiration to begin a work: I don't. You can just begin and watch what happens. When inspiration does happen, it's like being handed a rare gift, but don't let that stop you working the process. If you are waiting for inspiration you may wait a very long time. Painting this way is a journey of discovery and one that throws up real pearls.

By 2005, my son, who lives in California, asked me to paint him a work that reminded him of home, Aotearoa/New Zealand. I'd gone through a phase of doing stylized Maori type works and I didn't want to go back there. However, I desperately wanted to create a work he loved, because I missed him now that he lived in the USA. I couldn't begin his work for about eighteen months because I was at a loss about what to do. Then while in California on holiday in 2007, I held an intention in mind and then released it. I sat in front of the blank and empty board, not having a clue where to begin. My daughter-in-law asked, "Chris, what are you going to do?"
"I don't have a clue, Kathy", I replied.
I then explained that something always falls out on the canvas or board and yet I don't know what it will look like until I do it. All I had was the intention to do a 'kiwi' or Maori type work; that was all. Then I began to play with the paint and stir it all over the board. I worked for days before I began to see something emerging. I said to Kathy, "See. I look at the mess as if it were clouds in the sky. I stare and stare at the work until I see something in it and then I begin to outline what I see and make it more than what it is. If I don't like what I've created, then I just paint over it and keep working until I do like what I see." Kathy was so surprised and couldn't believe that something was emerging from nothing. I painted a work they both loved and when it was hung high up in their large hallway, it looked stunning. I've now realized that if I hold an intention in mind, then release that intention and paint from the 'not knowing', I can create a work in line with the original intention.

Upon completion of the class you may want to pursue your interest in art and enroll in other art classes. I will encourage you in whatever you choose for yourself. Please wear comforable old clothes.

STEP 1 Purchase:
Poster paint/tempera or
Acrylic (Can move to oils later, but not now because they take too long to dry)
Canvas's (Ikes Emporium, any emporium or the Warehouse) or
Heavy paper - Warehouse (purchase a few different sizes)
Sable brushes. Buy good brushes that come to a point. Small medium and large
Rags
Scissors
Glue stick or glue liquid and/or tape
Clear gloss liquid acrylic (spray can is fine) if you want to seal it
Pastels and Oil pastels
Gesso (if you want texture).
Plastic dinner plates (for mixing paints)
Glass jar or plastic cup for water

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