Case Study - Joan

Joan was an artist and was having problems with her arms and shoulders when she was painting at the easel. I watched her as she took a brush and started to paint. She immediately told me that painting a straight line was difficult and that she had to hold the paintbrush very still in order to do it. But she wasn’t just holding it still - she was holding it with enormous tension and stiffness. It hadn’t occurred to her that this was not just having an impact on her arms but it was also having an impact on her art. I told her that I can hear the tension in someone’s arms in the sound they make when playing the piano. She suddenly understood what I was getting at. She looked around at all the paintings on the wall of her studio and said Look! There is tension in all of my paintings.

With Joan, it was simply a case of showing her that she was using too much effort in order to hold her brush still. Once she had relaxed enough to realise that she could paint a straight line with complete freedom, not only did she start freeing up the pains in her arms but also her whole approach to painting began to change.