5 Ways a Daily Creative Act Can Save Your Art—and Maybe Your Life

Carrie Schmitt with paint on her hands -- how daily creative acts can empower your life and art | article by Artists Network
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Carrie Schmitt started painting as a therapeutic practice following a life-threatening diagnosis. Learn how daily “artful” acts saved her creative spirit when she was in a dark place—and how they might transform your life too.

Letting Go by Carrie Schmitt | How Creative Acts Leads to Better Art and Living | Artists Network
Letting Go by Carrie Schmitt

Art as Therapy

I began painting in 2009 after being diagnosed with a life-threatening allergy to heat while living in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Bedridden and unable to go outside for months, one day a voice popped in my head and said, “Now that your life is over, you might as well do what you want and paint.” Thankfully, I listened.

Painting became a therapeutic practice and act of tenderness amidst the darkness. With time, there was some healing. And the birth of my life as an artist.

Related: Why We Paint

The Rose Project

I began giving a rose to a stranger every day as a way to cope with personal heartache and melancholy. As a single mother and nurturer, I was tired of giving. While meditating, I whispered that I wanted to start receiving! An inner voice promptly replied, “You need to give more.” I was annoyed and dismayed—I wasn’t sure I had much more I could give.

My grandfather used to give my grandmother a rose every month so she could enjoy her favorite flower year round. As I listened to my intuition, I realized I was being called to give roses away too.

I gave a rose to a different person every day for a year. What has unfolded from this daily practice are moments with strangers that have transformed my relationship with creativity and my understanding of who I am as an artist and as a spiritual being.

Related: Art Projects for Adults: 10 Art Projects To Fuel Your Creativity

Giving a Rose -- Daily Creative Acts for Better Artful Living and Art, article by Artists Network
Image courtesy of Carrie Schmitt. Photo: Lauren Miles.

The following are five ways the daily creative act of giving a rose transformed my art and life. The project made me think of my relationship with others and with my own creativity in a very different way. Maybe it will for you as well!

1. It Can Teach You to Embrace Stillness

First, I had to listen to my inner self to realize what my path really was—not what I was “shouting” at it to be. You have to ask yourself what is truly calling you. And you have to be ready to hear the answer.

Giving away roses began with me quieting my mind and listening to that inner wisdom that we all have. For me, listening came through meditation and prayer. When I received the idea of the rose during those times of quiet, I chose to listen. I didn’t know why I was supposed to give away roses, but I trusted that I was meant to do it.

Trusting your sacred path and that you can walk it is a crucial practice in being brave in art and life. Releasing control over a desired or known outcome can be liberating, terrifying and absolutely necessary for creative expansion.

Carrie Schmitt with paint on her hands -- how daily creative acts can empower your life and art | article by Artists Network
Image courtesy of Carrie Schmitt. Photo: Lauren Miles.

2. You Can Find an Anchor

Is there certain recurring imagery or symbolism that connects you to your life story and to others? When you close your eyes and think of yourself as an object or color or place or action, what comes to mind? What embodies your spirit? What imagery empowers you?

For me, it was the rose. When a rose is exchanged between two people, we create a beautiful moment that otherwise would not exist. We are in union with the creative process, which heightens our senses and allows us to feel a flash of the divine, of something bigger than ourselves.

You have the same opportunity and potential to discover what your personal anchor is, and when you are ready, to do something with it.

Related: A Dog a Day: How Sally Muir Turned Her Love for Canines Into a Bonafide Success

Carrie Schmitt giving away a rose -- how daily creative acts empower your life and art | Artists Network
Image courtesy of Carrie Schmitt. Photo: Lauren Miles.

3. You Will Be Brave Enough to Share Your Gifts

Art is not a neutral pursuit—that means there are going to be awesome moments and moments that are not so awesome. Be brave and be willing to risk failure knowing that getting hurt is part of the process—but that the pursuit is worthwhile.

When I started the Rose Project, I could get nervous when giving out a rose. But I did it anyway. As a teacher, I used to dance around the idea of fear with my students. But I don’t do that anymore. The fear and nerves definitely exist. They always will.

You have to be brave enough to take what comes and roll with it. This takes time and means putting support mechanisms in place for yourself: the willingness to call a friend, write in your journal, or move or exercise.

It also means accepting that sometimes people will not want what I have to give—what we have to give. When someone does not want a rose, I accept that. I have learned to trust that the rose is just meant for someone else.

Rise by Carrie Schmitt | How Creative Acts Leads to Better Art and Living | Artists Network
Rise by Carrie Schmitt

4. You Can Start a Movement

With the Rose Project, I witnessed how creativity is contagious. In the same way my creative acts had ripple effects in my life and community, your creative acts will inspire others. After giving a rose to a young carpenter one day, he sent me a picture of a single rose he painted on the wall of a house he was working on! A single rose had inspired him to make a spontaneous art piece!

Another time, a preschool teacher took her rose to school and had her students each paint a single rose in a vase. The results were stunning. A poet wrote me a poem about a rose, and artists began sending me images of their own rose paintings as they got word of what I’d been doing.

You never know where your creative acts will lead, but if your experience is anything like mine, it will bring magic into your life. Your creativity has the power to delight and surprise you—even people you don’t know or have never met.

Related: First Face of War: Supporting Ukraine with an Artist’s Heart

How daily creative acts, such as giving a rose away to a stranger, can transform your life and art | article by Carrie Schmitt and Artists Network
Image courtesy of Carrie Schmitt

5. You Can Harness the Power of a Daily Practice

Giving a rose every day for a year was, for me, more exciting than anything else. I thought to myself: I can’t travel the world. I have financial and health issues, as well as responsibilities. So instead of traveling 10,000 miles, I will make my day-to-day life my pilgrimage, and people will have to be my continents.

There were definitely days when I questioned myself. Usually it was days when it was 10 p.m. and raining and I was driving to the store to get a rose…but I knew those moments mattered most.

When something is easy, you take it for granted. When it is tough and you question it all, but you still make the time and show inner discipline? That is when you really grow.

And that carries over to your art. Art is a practicing discipline, so the more you practice, the better it feels and the easier it flows. And  like the adage says, once you commit yourself, the universe comes to your aid.

Related: The Index Card Art Project: Paint for 31 Days

She Became a Rose by Carrie Schmitt | How Creative Acts Leads to Better Art and Living | Artists Network
She Became a Rose by Carrie Schmitt

The Rose Project has transformed my relationship with my art. The more I connected with creativity in my everyday life, the more real this creative force became to me and the less I doubted its existence.

Now, when I approach my artwork I do so with ease. I fold into the creative process effortlessly, letting it embrace me. There is no reason to worry. The roses taught me that.


About Carrie Schmitt

Carrie Schmitt | How Creative Acts Leads to Better Art and Living | Artists Network
Carrie Schmitt; photo: Zippy Lomax.

Carrie Schmitt’s art is sold in galleries and in private collections internationally and licensed for clothing, home décor, accessories, toys, and stationery with several companies, including Hallmark, teNeues Publishing, Dianoche Designs and Primitives by Kathy. Her work is sold in stores such as Pier 1 Imports, Target, Kirklands, and more. Schmitt is the author of The Story of Every Flower and Painted Blossoms: Creative Expressive Flowers with Mixed Media. She also teaches workshops and retreats throughout the country.

Learn more at carrieschmittdesign.com or explore her work on Instagram.

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Join the Conversation!

  1. Thank you for this article! Carrieexplained the sharing art (heart) beautifully. A simple piece of art given away, is an amazing experience for both.

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