Creative Genius 23 - Tracy Verdugo Artist & Author of Paint Mojo: Breaking the rules: How to Overcome your Fear of Creativity
In this episode I speak with Tracy Verdugo, Visual Artist, teacher and Author of the wildly popular book, “Paint Mojo”. For more than 22 years, Tracy has worked with thousands of people around the world - helping them to find their creative freedom. She shares the insights she’s gained over these years including the one main thing she has found, that she thinks is the key to creating amazing art and how giving it to ourselves can carry over into other areas of our lives changing everything about how we live for the better.
We talk about the power of learning how to break the rules to help us overcome fear & anxiety, to gain confidence in our creativity, and Tracy offers us some really practical ideas, insights and suggestions for harnessing and unleashing our creativity that I think you're going to find really useful AND she also tells us some beautiful stories (she has a true poet’s heart).
This is the kind of episode that fills you up with the feeling that you can in fact do it, and makes you want to get out your tools and materials and get going right away.
Tracy’s book “Paint Mojo” has over 25,000 copies in circulation - which is no surprise because when you hear her you immediately recognize her as one of those people that just makes you feel like anything's possible when it comes to your creativity.
My favourite is when she tells us the story of her accidentally wandering into somebody's backyard and Guatemala and the ensuing conversation about creativity that changed her entire perspective on everything.
Tracy Verdugo has taught over 100 workshops over the world and has a lot of insights to share that go a long way to helping us understand how to overcome the “I can’t” feelings many of us have when it comes to expressing our creative selves.
Things Tracy and I talk about
-The number one thing she learned in over 22 years of teaching over 100 workshops and classes around the world, about what humans need the most when it comes to creativity
-How giving this one thing to ourselves can carry over into our lives and change everything about how we live our lives for the better
-How traveling to Guatemala and meeting indigenous people for whom creativity was woven into every facet of their lives, was a light bulb moment for her in how fractured and silo-ed we have become in the west when it comes to accessing and enjoying this part of ourselves.
-The yearning we all have to connect with the world of our ancestors and how creativity is the bridge to that can deliver us there
-She told the story about a life-changing afternoon on a trip to Oaxaca when she wandered onto a family courtyard and had a serendipitous moment with a local man who was sitting in his garden there. He told her the thing he sees people doing in the west (when it comes to creativity) that he felt is making our whole culture sick.
-The three things we can stop doing to find our creative freedom
-The process she underwent to become someone who could allow creativity to move through her and stop creating from her rational mind.
-The one main thing she has found after decades of teaching and creating art that she thinks is the key to creating amazing art
-Her secrets for conjuring flow states
The most common limiting belief she thinks we are taught that squashes our creativity
ABOUT Tracy Verdugo
Tracy is an inspiration instigator, prolific painter, bestselling author and lover of the written word, smitten traveler and soaker up of all that is beauty-full. She teaches her Paint Mojo and other creative workshops all over this amazing planet and reminds her students of the wonder that already resides within them. Her works are vibrant and filled with joy, inspired both by global travels and the simple beauty of the focused moment.
Since 2000 Tracy has held 18 successful solo exhibitions and her works are held in collections both in Australia and internationally. Mostly though, she is mama bear to two gorgeous, zest-filled daughters, Santana and Cece, and co-adventurer in life with her amor of 34 years, the talented and brilliant Marco.
Kate Shepherd: art | website | instagram
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Tracy Verdugo website | facebook | instagram
Resources discussed in this episode:
- Paint Mojo (her book)
- Flora Bowley
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