Drawing as therapy with Liv Vinluan at her house on a hill in Antipolo Imposter Syndrome is described as the state “when you doubt your own skills and successes.” This was definitely not the case for me, when I found myself in front of an easel participating in a session held by artist Liv Vinluan in a house on a hill along the Sierra Madre mountain range in Antipolo, Rizal, just an hour away from Manila. I have long since ascertained that drawing and painting are not my medium.
Apparently, accepting this has given me an advantage in class. I need not go through the debilitating effect of having too much technical knowledge and artistic choices that could lead to anxiety and difficulty in making decisions on how to execute the first stroke on canvas. The speed, as well as my seemingly fearless act of composing the elements on my canvas, was noted by Liv.
“Ang bilis (so fast)!” she exclaimed. “It is liberating, not to have a name and a reputation to uphold in the art world. I am unburdened,” I explained.
This is not the case for a lot of her students, Liv revealed, citing how some students would struggle to start. So, she would give them a “prompt.” an idea to get the creative process started.
She would do this through collage. For some, confronting a blank canvas, or a blank page for writers, can be daunting. To make it less so, Liv invites her students to choose pieces from a bin of precut shapes of colored and recycled paper or, if they wish, cut their own s.