Tennis and Art: Making the Right Brain Connection

Have you read The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey?  My copy has yellowed pages (I have read and reread it since 1982) and lots of yellow highlights underscoring important sentences.  Now, as I'm rereading it again, I realize how much painting and tennis have in common.  The inner game, for both activities, is mastering the "art of relaxed concentration...aiming at a kind of spontaneous performance when the mind...seems at one with the body, and finds surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again." 

The joy of being part of a community of artists is just like the joy of being on a tennis team!  I may not move as well on the courts as I did in 1982, but I enjoy playing the game more than ever.  I am less afraid of a blank canvas than I was in 1982, and enjoy the process of making art more than ever!