Ellen Langer

Dr. Ellen Langer is a professor in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. She has written books for academic and general readers including Mindfulness; The Power Of Mindful Learning; On Becoming An Artist; Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity and Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.

Painting is enlivening for me. In fact, the thirty years of research that I've conducted in my other life as a psychologist, suggests that if we approach art mindfully, it is figuratively and literally enlivening.

As I discuss in my book, On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity, I pay no attention to rules and try not to evaluate the work as I go along. I find that so-called mistakes usually enrich the painting.

I become totally absorbed and let each stroke on the canvas tell me where to go next so I don't know fully what it will be until it's done. At that point I often use it as a mirror to my mind. The paintings are frequently fun, psychologically meaningful and often have dogs standing in for people.

Exhibitions
Julie Heller Gallery • Juried Shows, Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) • Borowicz Gallery • J & W Gallery, New Hope, Pa. • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, art show and lecture on Mindful Creativity

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