What I want people to realize is that there is enough inside them, that everything that they really need in order to feel a sense of aliveness and creativity is already inside. And not only is it inside them, but if they allow it they will have an interesting life.

Michele Cassou

It is extraordinary to see how the discovery of one single free stroke of paint can fill you with such joy and amazement.

Michele Cassou

paint joy discovery

Intuition comes from the whole person, from a place that includes the conscious and the unconscious. The total result of all feelings and perceptions manifests spontaneously through intuition. Intuition gives expression to the feelings; that expression is unique and perfectly fitted to the needs of the moment.

Michele Cassou

unique expression giving

To discover that you can paint without special talent is a great revelation. An endless stream runs through you, enough to paint for lifetimes. Talent is universal. You can dip into that source to your heart's content. Everyone is good at what comes to them spontaneously. If nothing is put in your way, talent will meet you there.

Michele Cassou

special heart running

Your art is part of the big painting of your life. You are on your own, standing by yourself in the middle of creation. In the beauty of that aloneness, and in how you respond to it, you will find your passion.

Michele Cassou

painting passion art

If you paint for product, you have to follow the rules that keep you on the track of your expectation. You have to calculate, organize, plan every move. When you paint for process, you listen to the magic of inner voices, you follow the basic human urge to experiment with the new, the unknown, the mysterious, the hidden. Process is adventure; product happens only within the parameters designed.

Michele Cassou

voice adventure moving

If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you. Your intuition is like a sensitive friend. If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent.

Michele Cassou

judging hurt talking

When you set aside the mantle of control in the painting process, images arise from ancient layers of the psyche.

Michele Cassou

layers ancient painting

Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.

Michele Cassou

done sake writing

If you listen inside, the brush will want to run toward a color. What you really need and want is very close, and the brush goes to it quickly if you don't think.

Michele Cassou

color running thinking

Look upon paintings with eyes of mystery rather than judgement. Support the need to enter into the sacred space beyond evaluation.

Michele Cassou

support space eye

When you have done your best, confronted your fear of committing to color and form, and dared to step over the threshold into the unknown, you will invariably find your own voice.

Michele Cassou

voice color done

You do not use art as a means to an end, but as a way to inhabit and explore the present. Right and wrong fade away; you recover your sense of what is authentic in you.

Michele Cassou

over-you mean art

We have within us enormous reserves of trapped potential. Our natural urges have been so constrained by the accommodations of living that we each have a smoldering volcano just below the surface. To enable this force to erupt in a healthy, open, and positive manner is a momentous act.

Michele Cassou

volcanoes healthy natural

To play is to listen to the imperative inner force that wants to take form and be acted out without reason.

Michele Cassou

reason want play

When we begin to lift the veils of censorship and repression in painting, a great deal of energy is unleashed.

Michele Cassou

painting veils energy

There is this mysterious energy that wants us to keep growing.

Michele Cassou

growing energy want

The unfolding of the unexpected becomes the energy that drives you. You discover how thirsty you are for exploration without analysis. You become strangely at home in a place you can't define. You are truly creating.

Michele Cassou

creating energy home

To play is to listen to the imperative inner force that wants to take form and be acted out without reason. It is the joyful, spontaneous expression of one's self. The inner force materializes the feeling and perception without planning or effort. That is what play is.

Michele Cassou

expression self play

When a seed sprouts, it's a violent process. The skin breaks and splits in two. Something dies and something is born. Anytime you paint a strong or violent image, you may be expressing that part of yourself that's opening in order to let the new emerge.

Michele Cassou

strong two order

Chaos is the soul of creation. It plows the ground of intuition. Without chaos, nothing will grow.

Michele Cassou

chaos intuition soul