Integrating Meditation into an Art Practice

A few months after 9/11, when so many around me were reassessing their values and searching for meaning, I attended a two-day Vipassana meditation retreat. I expected two grueling days of concentration, but instead, I found something that shifted the entire course of my life—both personally and artistically.

Meditation had intrigued me for years, a potential escape from the restless anxiety and relentless self-criticism that shaped my inner world. But at 19, I had no idea how to quiet my thoughts, and every attempt only made the noise worse. Frustrated, I abandoned it, convinced I simply wasn’t the “meditating type.”

Decades of creative work—painting, performance, music, movement—gave me outlets, but the deep-seated doubts remained. My inner critics loomed large, turning painting into a hollow exercise. The struggle wasn’t just artistic; it was personal, woven into the aftermath of trauma, addiction, and self-destructive narratives.

When a friend invited me to a meditation retreat in Olympia, Washington, I hesitated but accepted. The group was filled with people navigating their own post-9/11 soul-searching. I braced myself for failure, assuming I wouldn’t last an hour.

Sketch of Quan Yin Statue, Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, 10 x 10" (25 x 25cm), oil on recycled painting, 2021-23

Instead, something opened within me—a space beyond my assumptions, beyond my identity, beyond the stories I’d been telling myself for years. The practice was not seamless; it was filled with discomfort, revelations, and the familiar waves of fear, peace, doubt, and clarity. But through it all, I was learning presence, learning to sit with whatever arose, rather than fighting it.

That same presence eventually led me back to painting. After stepping away from my art for over a decade, convinced I should focus on more practical paths, I found creativity pushing its way through in meditation. Ideas surfaced, waiting. I hesitated but followed the impulse—attending open drawing sessions, taking classes, allowing my artistic instincts to lead the way.

Meditation didn’t erase fear or doubt, but it reframed them. My inner critics were still there, but I learned to see them differently—not as barriers, but as passing thoughts that didn’t have to dictate my choices.

Now, meditation is deeply woven into my creative practice. Often, I meditate twice in a session—once for stillness, once to let ideas flow freely, with a sketchbook nearby. That space, that emptiness, feels alive, filled with possibility.

It isn’t a perfect process. Healing, creativity, presence—they all require patience. But through meditation, I’ve found a deeper connection to the wellspring of creativity, a place of openness where art is not just an act but an unfolding dialogue with the self.