01 ARTIST & INTUITIVE PRACTICE -Inner Voice, Trust and Discernment

My practice begins in a deeper knowing encountered in a place of stillness. It begins beyond thought and beyond feeling. In The Artist and Intuitive Practice, I begin with that deeper awareness — a quiet state of knowing encountered before language or conscious reasoning. Drawing on my lived practice as a visual artist I explore what it means to stay present with that knowing, to recognise the responses that gather around it, the work, and how to develop the discernment and trust to carry it into form. I do not treat intuition as chance, impulse or certainty about an outcome. I approach it as a relationship with attention — shaped by experience, embodied and tacit knowledge, craft, reflection, and the willingness to remain with what is already present before thought begins to organise it. Across inner voice, trust and discernment, I follow the movement from stillness and deeper awareness into recognition, action, form and later articulation. I also consider what happens once an artwork leaves the studio and becomes an encounter with another person, whose own experience may give it a meaning I could never prescribe. At the centre remains the same question: can I stay connected to my own knowing long enough to discern what belongs? This book invites you to listen closely, stay present, trust what persists, and let that knowing find its form.