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Jun 11
3 min

The Value of Frustration

First published May 31 2019 When making art, moments of grace sometimes occur, little shots of the miraculous when something ineffable op...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
1 min

A Birthday Present for the Muse

first posted May 2019 This week I was invited to be Eric Maisel's guest blogger on Fine Arts America https://ericmaisel.com/2019/04/26/bi...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
4 min

Spring Cleaning The Routine

first posted April 17th 2019 A man will enjoy today what exasperated him yesterday, wrote Jean Metzinger. I would add, and vice versa. On...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
4 min

The Lifespan Of Emotions.

first published April 2nd 2019 "The life span of any particular emotion is only one and a half minutes. After that we have to revive the ...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
3 min

Equilibrium

Thinking positively, and thinking negatively don’t always do what they say on the tin. We might over focus on the torment, always compari...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
3 min

Morning Pages

first published March 5th 2019 It’s a month since I last wrote my blog; I missed the last fortnightly post. What happened? I got caught ...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 11
5 min

“I Feel Nauseous Doing This.”

first published February 6th 2019 I was coaching someone who experiences waves of nausea while making work. He’s hard working, dynamic, a...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

In Celebration Of Persistence.

first published January 2019 I like to call it determination. When I was in my mid twenties there was an event that confirmed the benefit...

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Carl Jung, Faltering In The Dark, And Choosing To Dive.

Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

Carl Jung, Faltering In The Dark, And Choosing To Dive.

first published November 21st 2018 “The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to r...

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Anxiety And Boredom, Excitement And Patience

Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

Anxiety And Boredom, Excitement And Patience

first published November 2018 I wrote before about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas on flow, with his diagram indicating that it occurs wh...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

The To Don't List

first published October 24th 2018 More than one client has complained to me about the problem of having too many ideas. Each time I have ...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

Motivation and Appetite

first published October 10th 2018 Thursday morning, last week, one of my teaching days, was spent giving a presentation to year 2 art st...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

Back to Work

first posted September 2018 Re-introduced to Maria Popova’s wonderful Brain Pickings, I subscribed to her Sunday digest – a labyrinth of ...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

Getting Personal

first published September 11th 2018 There were aspects of my upbringing that supported my freedom to create. I grew up with a lot of phys...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

My Good Friend, Anxiety

first published August 2018 I blame creativity coaching. In an exercise, as a coaching student, where we co-coached on the topic of our w...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

Busy Times

first published August 14th 2018 It’s been a busy time; I’m preparing for an exhibition, having learned basic InDesign skills after a tut...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
3 min

Mistakes, Life and Light

first published August 2018 When I was a fourth year art student, I worked on the balcony in the Mackintosh at Glasgow School of Art (sad...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

Celebrate your Supporters

first published July 2018 I love the aspect of painting that allows me to feel self reliant and free in making decisions. When the part o...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

Competition And Jealousy

first published July 2018 Last week I wrote about jealousy and envy. Dipping into my metaphorical postbag, I notice that the original req...

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Elise V Allan

Jun 10
4 min

The Gift Wrapped In Envy

first published July 2018 ‘The great thing about this kind of work is that every feeling that you have, every negative feeling, is in a w...

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