My friend asked me why I haven't produced a canvas in some time. I can answer that. Even though, as any artist will tell you, it is boring to paint what you already know how to paint, I am reluctant to enter the place from which real creativity comes.

That creative place, like a secret garden, is available only with this key: what Arthur Koestler calls "innocence of perception." When we are anxious to please others with our art, we give up that innocence in exchange for approval. We learn the rules. This is why art therapists say, "Beware the great strength." We are less, not more, likely to be spontaneously creative when we are highly trained.

By the time we are adolescents, many of us have given up original creation altogether. Age 12 to 14 is a crucial creative stage, a tight passage through which many adults have not passed. Most people stop art activity at age 14. After childhood, a step into real creative space requires a big step away from what we think we know. To facilitate that step, it is sometimes helpful to have adult artists work with an unfamiliar medium or in an unfamiliar way. In working with children, this is almost never necessary.

Watching a child create, I can appreciate her thorough immersion in the art process. I know there is an element of magic in this. An engaged child will almost never ask for snacks, will be unaware of the passage of time. When parents come for pick-up, there will be cries of disbelief and an unwillingness, sometimes almost an inability, to disengage. Artist and teacher Robert Henri spoke of an engagement with creativity as "a flight into a higher state." It can be hard to make a gentle landing.