I am a No Fear Artist

We're getting T-shirts printed for the Art Station with the words No Fear Artist splashed across the back. There will be questions of the wearer, I'm sure, but No Fear is a common slogan around The Art Station. No Fear is our most popular class regardless of whether it's No Fear Watercolor, No Fear Drawing or even No Fear Clay. All of these classes have one thing in common: the quest to diminish the fears that block creativity.

Once a No Fear artist, always a No Fear Artist. Students will yell out "No Fear" if they hear even a slight hesitation from one who is afraid to try something new. The theory of No Fear is contagious and spreads rapidly, for one class reaps a lifetime of benefits not only in art but also in life. Creative problem solving is a skill that can be learned and put into practice in any dilemma no matter how complex.

It's simple, but only after we diminish our fears, and we can diminish our fears only after we embrace them.

We are sidelined first and foremost by that mother of all fears: Fear of Change. It's so easy to stay in our warm little comfort zone. We can even pace back and forth in there without much stress. If we stay there too long, however, we cannot grow, and we find the longer we put off change, the more difficult it is to actually do it.

Too, the greater the change, the greater the fear. For example, adding a room to my too small home is much less scary than building an entirely new house. Planting an herb garden is nothing compared to landscaping my front yard.

Yet, these aren't really the hard changes, are they? What about making the change involved in the decision to place your mother in an assisted living center? That may be a sizable change for her, but what if you were to allow her to move in with you? What about taking a child to karate? Easy, but what about the decision to take a child to a psychiatrist?

Empty Nest is a scary change that is thrust upon parents as their last child leaves the roost, the fear of a hollow life once the children leave home. Luckily for us, we're not caught unaware. We know by the time the youngest is sixteen that it's time to take small steps to overcome this particular fear.

Not me. From the time she was about nine or ten, our daughter let us know that she wanted to go to college somewhere in the mountains. It didn't take us long to realize she meant out-of-state since the last time I looked, Louisiana was still pretty flat. Within eight years, she made her wish come true, but I hoped that one day she would return not necessarily to live with us but at least closer. Then again, think of how many young adults are returning home because they are just too afraid to face life on their own? No such luck. She has already graduated from college, married, and still lives in her college town in Tennessee, so I had to accept the fact that my husband and I had joined the ranks of the Empty Nesters.

If I had not been in denial, I could have tackled this Fear of Change in small steps. Instead when it finally dawned on me that she was not going to move back home, my steps had to be quick and anxious, do or cry decision-making.

Now I am a No Fear Artist better able to embrace my fears, one small step at a time.


-Kim