Creative Ways to Explore Your Values & Vision

I recently did a workshop with the mixed media artist Eric Scott called What’s the Big Idea? This workshop was focused on finding the “big idea” behind the art we are making, but these same creative tools can be used as you explore and identify your values and clarify your vision.

Eric asked us to consider the question, what would you boil down your artwork to being about? 

I started freewriting (where you write without stopping for 5 or 10 minutes) and noticed after I finished that I wrote about resistance. I wrote about the resistance that I see in myself when I want to make a change, but also the resistance that I notice in others, resistance like sticky sap that blocks progress and beats back against change for the common good.

As I worked on images – painting, drawing, and collaging – the notion of resonance emerged. I reflected on the ways the shapes and colors of my work are visual echoes of the connection that I feel with myself and with others. 

Eric then gave us a process for looking at another artist whose work we admire and thinking about what draws us to their work and what themes show up.

I chose Sharon Virtue, whose recent exhibit State of Nature beautifully connects the human with nature. She uses pinks, browns, blacks, greens, golds with such delicious vibrancy.

In her statement about the exhibit, she says, “nature inspired me to broaden my scope of thinking, and the intersection of social justice and climate change became more clear, acknowledging the biggest challenge we are all facing as a species.”

What a beautiful example of honoring the big idea in one’s work. 

Inspired by her use of color and image, I painted and drew these faces and figures, embracing the browns, blacks, blues, flowing lines and shapes, feeling for the skeleton that forms the body of my work.