We just received our first delivery of our books, A Choice of Next. We are so excited to share our new book with you. A book signing will be held on Arts’ Alive both on Dec. 2nd and again on Jan. 6th, between 6-9 PM at 417 2nd Street, Old Town, Eureka, CA.
The Power of Story
Running On Moonstone Beach by Donna Sellers
I love the different stories Bob and I share after completing a painting. The insights I gain about myself are exciting and I enjoy making up stories that play with psychological meanings within myself. Bob has a gift of deepening a story leading to major shifts in one’s thinking. His imagination has been finely tuned to the archetypes and psychology of change and growth. We have found a way to deepen our lives while having fun with each story we imagine.
So many thoughts, feelings, and stories come through me when I travel in my imagination. They all seem important at the time, but I trust that the stories I imagine can shift my perceptions of reality even if I don’t remember them.
I am excited to have discovered a new passion: the power of the story. After completing a painting that I love like Moonstone Beach, I am in awe about what we can do and how rewarding the whole process is. The mix of colors that I love, along with the story and the backdrop of the infinite seascape near where we live, elicits strong feelings in me. All parts of creating Moonstone Beach represent the best of my creative worlds.
Running On Moonstone Beach
Mary was given a mare for Christmas which she named “Liberty.” She decided on this name as she saw how upset the mare seemed to be when she was locked up in the corral. Mary spent many hours trying to reconcile how to give Liberty space to run and yet, at the same time, protect her and take the care needed to slowly get her used to the conditions of her new home.
At last, Mary came up with a plan. Each day she would open the gate and allow Liberty to run down the path to the beach, the wind blowing in her mane and the sand kicking up under her hooves. Liberty was so fast that Mary had to gallop to keep up with her. She didn’t worry though because Liberty would always slow down when she came to the Little River as though this barrier reminded her that she could not run forever. Sensing that there would be another opportunity to run free, as this had become a routine, Liberty was satisfied to allow Mary to catch up with her and guide her back into the corral for a treat of two red apples.
Interpretation:
This story represents two parts of myself. I can let myself go on an adventure because I know I can count on the other part of me to be alert and come up with a plan to bring me back into balance. The woman galloping on her horse loves to let her mare run and has learned to manage her needs as well as the needs of the wilder side represented by the horse who wants to run free of any constraints or rules.
The Power of Imagination
Red In A Blue World by Bob and Donna Sellers
The meaning of the stories in our art can be both direct and indirect. Those persons viewing the art might realize that the story represents a particular issue in their real life or might be a metaphor, indirectly representing an issue in their life.
Research suggests that people who engage their imagination in some creative way may have a more positive and hopeful mood state than people who don’t use their imagination. Imagination is stimulated by our story art creating enjoyment and can lead to understanding of self and others.
An important variable is what you do with your imagination. Imagination when used to think of, or foresee the future, projects creative energy forward resulting in a positive outcome. Your positive perception of the future attracts that future to happen. Imagining the future is a form of fiction. Allow your imagination to create a story you want for yourself, one you believe will work for you, a story that contains elements of life that please you, a story that will put juice into your daily existence.
Everyone loves a story. Our personal story, conscious or unconscious, is determinative. Our story defines who we are and who we are not. Our personal story is like a corral in which we live. Beliefs and behaviors that appear outside of our corral are not believed to be who we are and therefore are often rejected as untrue. If your life needs something, someone, or an adaptation that is not you, then enlarge and expand your story to include the characteristics that you want or need.
My practice as a therapist involved guiding people to use their imagination to create a new story more useful to them than the one they came in with. I called my work, “Imaginal Therapy.” In practice, it ignored everyday reality in favor of a parallel metaphor that symbolically represented their reality. Symbolic Parallel Metaphors are easier to shape and evolve with fiction than the reality that people believe they are stuck with. It was what you would call an oblique approach to help people get to where they wanted to be. This approach was a very creative and enjoyable experience for both myself and the client.
Imagination and Self-Discovery
Choosing a particular character in an art image to role-play or write about, while letting your imagination loose, may bring about a change in self-definition, and create an adaption in behavior that they may not have used in their past. Bring your characters alive as you write, give them feelings, thoughts, perceptions, prejudices, fears, strengths, etc., and include all the characteristics you want them to have. Your imagination may lead to growth, conscious or unconscious, leading to a change in some future moment in time.
Suggestions are provided on how to get started to get the most from your writing. (See Creative Writing.)
Working as Co-Artists
Lift Off By D & B Sellers
A frequent question we are asked about our art is: “How do you both work on the same painting?” There are many aspects and parts to our work from imagining the art image, photographing models, creating montages, and using various techniques and steps in painting and finishing a final artwork. As a couple who works together in one way or another on every art project, we cannot separate our work from how we function and interact positively with each other in our personal lives, sharing our passions and excitement about whatever is our current project. We never try to second guess our audience as we enjoy appealing to a wide range of people with varied interests and backgrounds and love surprises and unexpected reactions, both positive and negative.
Most of our home is part of our studio and we rearrange the art in our living room “gallery” regularly. We look at the art that is in process and imagine any changes either of us would like to see. Thus, our imagination and stories are continually changing and infused with the reflections of each of us. Each painting stimulates many hours of reflection, writing, and sharing. When we find ourselves in conflict, we choose a “director,” the one who had the original idea, who gets to have the final say. In future blogs, we plan to share some of the most exciting outcomes of these moments, including our art, our writing, and the direction of our work.
What led us to become visual artists?
Creative imagination became an integral part of our personal life from the beginning of our partnership. I lived in Sedona, Arizona, and was a mind-body therapist with a humanistic and metaphysical orientation when we got together. Bob was just finishing up his career in Sacramento where he led metaphoric psychodrama groups, trained and supervised psychology Interns, and had a private practice which he called Imaginal Therapy. Possibly, because we had worked together in the same field many years before and were both creative in our approaches to our work, we began our chapter together with a fair amount of trust. As individuals who were used to creating outside the norm, changing our direction as “retirement age” folks was not a big stretch for us. We were more than ready to move to a new location and to minimize our previous identities as psychotherapists, trying something entirely new for us.
As adventurous souls, we allowed our imagination to take priority in leading our creative energies in a new direction. Our emphasis on creative story art and the feminine was a natural bridge from our previous background in psychology. For over 20 years we have enjoyed the challenge of this new direction, experimenting with new ideas and techniques, and varied ways to express them. What is most important to us, is that we have fun and enjoy the process as much as we enjoy the outcome.
After moving to the creative community of Eureka on the north coast of California in 1995, we began exploring ways of visually and artistically expressing common experiences and dramas through art. We followed our excitement about the visual arts and found our imagination to be strong enough to help us through the technical learning curve. We began with photography and quickly jumped into montages of creative scenes with a message or story to be told. We won early awards and began exhibiting on a regular basis, learning a great deal from the feedback we would receive at our exhibits, what people were attracted to, and what they would buy.
We realized there was much more to learn about doing art and we wanted to express beyond the limitations of photography. We took lots of photos of models and Humboldt backgrounds, capturing various emotions and arranging scenes that would project familiar archetypal stories to viewers. We found that painting our montages provided a greater opportunity for the projections of one’s personal story. We used a lot of trial and error to express our intentions and studied with teachers in the field of digital painting and later, painting with acrylics. We continue to try new ideas and learn new techniques in our work.
Today our work often reflects common themes and stories with which many people can identify. We use universal symbols and themes that can help viewers to create a deeper connection with our art. To further extend our creativity into the field of writing as well as to deepen our own experience of our work, we began writing fictional stories inspired by our art. Bob, who used to direct creative fictional writing with his clients, has found that writing can be fun and a form of release while also leading to deeper insights and understandings. Bob has always been big on humor and fiction as healing tools and avenues to reach the unconscious.
Beginning in 2018, we began focusing on Bob’s novel he wanted to complete, An Absence of Normal, a humorous, sexy book about psychotherapists working in a counseling center. I studied self-publishing and assisted Bob with editing and publishing his book in 2021. After Covid came, we stopped exhibiting and I began to focus in earnest on the book I wanted to complete, A Choice of Next, which I published in November 2023.
Shared by Donna Sellers