A Rhinestone Therapy

(Or, all that sparkles)

The Artist’s Way has been around since the early nineties, which now somehow feels like the new seventies. I first received the book from a dear friend when I graduated from college, but I did not get all the way into it until my mid-thirties, when I had what could be called a breakdown or a breakthrough. The language depends on who is telling the story.

This is not a piece about that break. And it is not a piece about The Artist’s Way either. At least, not really.

The part of the book that stayed with me is the Morning Pages practice. Three full pages of stream-of-consciousness writing done first thing in the morning, before the dust of the day clouds you. The idea is to clear the mind so the real creativity has a chance to show up. I have dipped in and out of Morning Pages for years. Filling the pages was never the problem. The voices in my head have enough material to fill several libraries.

The real challenge was not going back to them. Not editing them. Not pretending they were anything more than the debris that needed to be cleared so I could make something clean and beautiful.

But even the debris becomes part of the work. There is no way around that.

Still, this is not a piece about writing. It is a piece about rhinestone paint-by-number crafts.

I knew these little kits existed, but I had never opened one until a few days after Black Friday, when I found several marked down to practically nothing. I spent two dollars and bought four of them. I expected nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Those two dollars unlocked what has become the most effective art therapy I have ever tried.

I have bought so many creative tools over the years. Coloring books. Canvases. Paints. Markers. Stickers. Even chalkboard paint and sidewalk chalk. I liked them all well enough, but I cannot say any of them ever brought me peace. I always carried the weight of outcome, the hunger for validation, the quiet ache to be good at what I was making.

Even Morning Pages, helpful as they are, still belong to the larger writing process that can be both powerful and punishing. There is always a part of me waiting to judge the work before the ink is even dry.

(As I typed that last sentence, my brain whispered, “Writers do not do positive self-talk.” It whispered it like a fact.)

But these rhinestone crafts. Wow. In these small, sparkly pictures, I found the quiet I believe art therapy hopes to offer. No decisions. No complicated directions. No pressure. Just tiny gems, a simple pattern, and a rhythm that is soothing in a way I did not see coming.

They take just enough time to finish. They shine when they are done. And they ask absolutely nothing of me.

I am going to use them as holiday wrapping adornments. Each one will get a note about how the piece helped me and what it made me grateful for in the recipient. A tiny gift inside the gift.

There was a time when I would have been embarrassed by something so outrageously tacky. Now I am grateful that time is behind me.

To new beginnings. To peace and comfort. To love and light.

And to two-dollar rhinestones that reminded me there is still beauty in work (any work) with my own hands.

Seems too on the nose to be true, but I also rediscovered Jewel’s “Hands” while putting these together. If you haven’t listened to that 90s banger (it’s actually a pretty slow folk song), give it a listen. “Only kindness matters.”