Nina Ross, PhD

Testimonials from the Last Painting Group

Nina — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:27:27 +0000

“This is one of the safest places I’ve ever experienced.” V.F.
“This is wild shit! You never know what gifts may come. The painting answered is the prayer. The prayer answered is the painting.” V.F.

“It’s such a relief to see that there is a natural healing process which happens when I pick up the paintbrush, drop into my body, and let the journey just happen. It reaffirms to me that “I” don’t have to figure everything out with my mind……that there is safety in letting go.” JB

“This painting..I never know what I’m going to paint. I don’t even know how to paint/ But when I open to the way my body wants to move, somehow emotions arise and painting happens. It also allows all my fears to come forward to be greeted and welcomed into the whole of me.” WL

The next 2 painting groups begin on February 16 and February 17. Experience joy, come paint!

Letting Go Painting

Nina — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:00:35 +0000

A person came to painting group who, I discovered upon talking with her during painting time, is extremely hard on herself. Her father was quite critical of her, and she, as a child, just swallowed all of his harshness into herself and believed all the words. In the painting process, she was judgmental towards what she was doing much of the time. Sometimes, she would cry after realizing just how critical she had become. She’d take a step back, take a deep breath, and go back into the painting with more gentleness and softening.
Finally, she had had enough, and she just let go. No planning, no trying, just painting, which for her at that moment, looked like smushing the colors together. She found some freedom here. And, at the very last moments, she took a piece of paper, and glued it on top of the painting. The painting really did take on a feeling of looseness. Sometimes, we have to clear what’s in the way, fully engage with it, before letting go happens.

Intuition, Action and Risk

Nina — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:35:04 +0000

I met with a friend last night who is a sculptor. Her interest is in making molds of birds that are endangered, especially of vultures.
Last night she told me a story. She was watching a PBS special on vultures in Africa. A woman was being interviewed that runs a sanctuary in Africa. My friend was riveted. After watching the show, she went online and got information about where this sanctuary was , and who to contact. She went online and began a correspondence with the woman who runs this place. To make a long story short, my friend has bought her ticket to Africa. She will be molding vultures, eagles, and perhaps other birds that are being saved especially for her.
My friend trusted her intuition, took action, and a large risk. She followed her passion up to the very last detail. It takes alot of courage to do this.
What is calling to you? Where do you need to trust and act? What will you do, as Mary Oliver states, with your one precious and wild life?

Relief From Not Thinking

Nina — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:21:44 +0000

One of the things that makes art-making so healing is that we “forget” to think about ourselves! Art-making, bringing attention to images, takes the focus off of our usual self-obsession. This is usually felt as a gigantic relief. Hours go by, and where have we been? We don’t know, we’ve been so immersed, that we’ve been outside of time as we know it. The “I”, with it’s usually constant self-reflection, doubt, worry, and just plain imagining the future, slows down, and with it, thoughts slow down, too. I believe that it is this slowing down, and caring or paying attention to something else besides the contents of our thinking, that gives us a cool drink of water, a pleasant refresher.

Keeper of the Secrets

Nina — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:41:51 +0000

When talking about image-making and images with a friend over tea, I admitted that I don’t look for meaning when I make my art. How ironic we laughed that, as an art therapist, I keep quiet when it comes to my own work. My friend said that she understands this. She stated, “We as artists are usually the keeper of the secrets.” Ah, I liked that term immediately. How fun words can be to play with!
We are such keepers of the secrets, I stated, and sometimes, we don’t even know what secrets we’re keeping. Perhaps the art itself plays hide and seek with us., sometimes revealing itself fully, sometimes not. Whatever the case, though, we hold as sacred both what we know, and what we don’t, just being pleased and honored to keep the mystery and aliveness of the images close by.

One Painter’s Share of her painting experience

Nina — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:14:03 +0000

This fall, I approached an intuitive painting class with some trepidation. After laboring over the first painting I presented my work to one of my mentors, an art therapist, for comment. She asked me what I felt it needed. I was blank. We turned it up-side-down. Again I was blank. She then asked if the image was precious and I replied that it did feel that way. At that point she suggested I paint over the image and keep working. For a moment, I froze. It’s not that the painting was good—it was that I was afraid I couldn’t do better or even more. I was amazed that I actually had to draw on some courage to proceed and yet I knew if I did it would be a breakthrough for me. I remembered seeing Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 film, The Mystery of Picasso (Le Mystère Picasso), which shows Picasso painting and repainting image after image. Out of the hundreds of reworks there were probably innumerable masterpieces that were simply painted over. He seems to be playing with all the possibilities–to let go of the ‘preciousness’ in any one particular image and keep exploring until the image that speaks to him emerges. This memory opened the way to proceed so I grabbed a large brush and began to apply large swaths of paint to the paper. What emerged and morphed from one painting into another were a series of exploding volcanoes. I painted the molten veins beneath the volcano, I expanded the explosion onto another sheet of paper, added a starry night, some lightening, a trickster coyote, a tree with its roots deep in the dark earth, which finally became a woman’s back with her spine exposed. Upon stepping back from this series I understood most of the symbolism but I realized I had only scratched the surface when a friend commented that the explosions looked like pain. I was thinking emotional pain but he had meant physical pain. Then it hit me that I had been painting the chronic shoulder pain I’ve been experiencing since an accident last winter. I’ll be working with these particular images for some time to come yet I am willing to let them become something else.

Relief From Meaning

Nina — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:31:25 +0000

When we practice Intuitive Painting in the studio, there is a relief from meaning that takes place. We don’t ask, as we do in a therapeutic session, what does this painting mean, what story does it tell. We, instead, follow the thread of the painting, step by step, as it reveals itself to us. We are so psychologically sophisticated in this culture. We tell our stories constantly, even publicly on television. To practice something like Intuitive or process painting, or it can happen in other practices as well,is to have a break from interpretation. Ah, a breath of fresh air is what it can feel like. Just being in a dialogue with the painting, following it as it lets us know what it needs, is a practice that helps us to be present in the Now, with ourselves and it.

Beautifying The Wound

Nina — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:29:39 +0000

As I am watching somebody carve slashes into a piece of wood, I am thinking of wounding, as is she. After cutting the slashes the way that she wants them, she is now painting the wood gold, and rapping the wood/wound with black and gold thread. She is acknowledging the wound, and how hurt she feels. However, instead of leaving it at that, she is doing repair work. She is acknowledging the hurt and making something of beauty out of it. This rings of alchemy. Taking a heavy feeling and allowing the alchemical process, which involves holding and letting the hurt be, and, after some cooking in the vessel of transformation, helping it have another life. Gold, especially, is the goal in alchemy, the end of the process. By painting her wood/wound gold, this person is stating something like: “I have let myself feel, and I have now come through to the other side of the pain.”

Painting as Opening

Nina — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:04:46 +0000

A participant in an Intuitive Painting group writes” Painting like this provides an opening. What was once closed, blocked, or neglected begins to breathe again. The breath of new life moving through me and extending again beyond the studio space. I become more and more in touch with myself and what is natural and authentic, bringing about greater awareness in my everyday life and rendering a greater sense of gratitude for what is.”

State of Unknowing

Nina — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:24:39 +0000

A client, the oldest of three daughters, has been raised to be forthright, responsible, and somewhat rigid. Having not rebelled against that as a teenager, her time is ripe to now. However, now in her late 20′s, she does not seek to be wild and crazy, but to be be more open, spontaneous, and natural. As we work with her images, she creates an upside down, flying and falling through the air figure. We look at this figure together, sensing that, although she is not “going anywhere,” she is surely enjoying the fall! The not-going- somewhere is an antidote to the masculine drive to accomplish something. This is a very valuable place, as it relaxes us and opens us up to what is organic in us. We learn what we really like, dislike, and need, as opposed to what the culture has prescribed us to need.
The transition that this client is in creates a state of unknowing. When we move to the known into the unknown, it is important to have patience while we shed the old ways of thinking about ourselves.