We recently connected with Caitlin Schmitt and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Caitlin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I was recently asked to create a portrait of two sisters who had passed away many years ago, even though these sisters had not met. A young couple commissioned the painting together, each of them lost a sister to suicide years ago. This piece was for the entryway to their new home they bought together and lovingly remodeled. They knew I painted the energy of living souls and wondered if I could paint the energy of someone on the other side. Because their sisters could never meet in real life, they imagined this painting as a way in which they might meet one another and be memorialized in their home. Although it was a daunting task and uncharted territory to work with the dead, I was willing to try.

Part of the complexity of this commission was the trauma and healing needed for both sisters around the nature of their death. I took on the commission knowing clearly that I served their highest good and healing above all else, and the sisters were my clients no different than a living client. I would get as much help and support for them as they needed and asked for, much like a spiritual social worker. With this integrity, I could move forward with the painting project in earnest.

As an artist, it was an exciting and meaningful exploration to learn to paint someone on the other side. As a healer, it was an interesting way to expand my skills and connect to energy in new ways. Interestingly, I had accidentally painted the energy of people who had passed before. While painting a commissioned piece for my best friend, his father came to me and expressed his love and longing for his son. Then, while creating a large portrait for a client, her grandmother rushed in during the process and told me all about the strength and power of her matriarchal line. I painted these energies into the pieces, as if my hand was guided by the person on the other side.

I began this commission with a conversation to connect with the couple and learn all about their sisters. I looked at pictures, heard about their personalities. Their struggles. And their death. The impact it had on their siblings. It was a powerful and incredibly rich conversation, one that brought healing. It also initiated the creative container with a lot of potent energy. Next, I did a lot of reflecting, journaling, and meditation to get a sense of their energies. They were also quite different, and so painting them together would be somewhat of a challenge creatively. In fact, it became clear that I was not going to be painting the two of them together, they felt it was best to paint them alongside their living siblings. This was for two reasons; first, they thought it important to celebrate the life the couple was building together. A reminder of their own life, not just their lost loved ones. Second, they wanted to be depicted in such a way that connected each of them to their own sibling, rather than to one another.

Next, with this clarity, I began by meeting with two different mediums to ask them questions and glean more information about their experiences and needs. Then, I hired an Italian witch and a Reiki practitioner to work with each of them and provide healing services to support their full transition, their peace, and their need for witness. I relayed much of this back to the couple and they were grateful and touched with the messages and healing their sisters conveyed.

Then, I began painting. I created three process paintings before the final commissioned piece. Each of these addressed the healing of each sister as well as their desire to connect with their sibling. I gifted these portraits to the couple, knowing that they contained love and medicine from their sisters and were meant to be with them. Finally, I turned to the final portrait. Because I had spent about 2 weeks immersed in this process and connecting with my 4 clients, I felt ready to synthesize a beautiful portrait tying it all together. It went more quickly than I imagined, each person had certain colors and elements that represented them and they all came together in a balanced and beautiful painting. I could not have imagined this final portrait, and originally I had no idea how I would get there, but it was really fulfilling to see it emerge so naturally. Especially when I was going outside of my comfort zone.

This project signaled to me a major shift in my creative calling. The endless possibilities and layers of healing previously unexplored opened up a huge realm of inspiration previously untapped. My longing for connection to something beyond this world was satiated in a surprising way. It was as if I finally got to talk to the unseen world of energy I’d been painting all along. This project meant a lot to me because it pushed me to the edge of what I thought possible, it challenged me to learn new skills, and it expanded my horizons as an artist and a healer tremendously.

Caitlin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I first was compelled to start painting just five years ago. It was never something I imagined myself doing. I didn’t consider myself artistic or even creative really. I’d been a massage therapist for years, I’d studied religion… I always loved studying and working with humans at the intersection of the spiritual and physical realms; our bodies and our stories fascinate me. For a while, I thought I needed to get a more stable and serious profession, so I went to graduate school for my doctoral degree in physical therapy. I pushed myself through this incredibly challenging undertaking knowing deep down that it wasn’t a great fit for me. I loved working with people and seeing them heal and return to what they loved, but ultimately the requirements of insurance and the entire paradigm of how western medicine functions grated at my soul.

I heard a voice in my head while working at a neuro-rehab PT clinic, it was very clear, ” You’re a healer, not a physical therapist. You will be more powerful outside of the system. Get out of here.” I now know this voice as my inner knowing and wisdom, but at the time it felt like an intrusive outsider. It took about a year for me to obey this persistent voice, and I’ve never looked back. The decision to say “no” to something that I’d invested so much time, money, and energy into is the thing I am most proud of. Having the courage to completely change the path I’d laid out for myself was the most pivotal moment in my professional life.

So, I started my own little practice doing bodywork again, returning to the career I loved. I offer reiki, craniosacral therapy, and intuitive bodywork to my clients in Durham, NC. I also do distance energy healing sessions internationally, often working with folks with neurological conditions just like I did as a PT. I seem to work extremely well with other artists and therapists as well. I always trust that the right clients will find me when they’re ready.

When I started my practice, I also embarked on a creative exploration, engaging in embodied practices, meditation, and deepening my training in the tradition of Reiki as well as craniosacral therapy. All of these practices helped me to cultivate presence, deep listening, and a capacity to be a clear an open channel. Alongside this journey, I started painting. And these skills served me very well as an abstract artist. Over the years, I have woven my very subtle, energetic healing modalities with my painting practice.

This weaving together birthed what I now call the “Healing Portrait” session. The healing portraits I offer can take many forms depending on my clients’ needs, ranging from 1 to 4 hours. Sometimes there is a lot of talking and processing first. Sometimes there is dancing. Often there are tears and release. I do them virtually or in the studio, working with the individual’s unique energy during the session. When working at a distance, I use Reiki to connect and sense the person’s energy while painting an abstract expression of their energy. Ultimately, these sessions are intuitive and we process whatever is alive and present in the moment. The intention is always to support our healing and evolution toward liberation and wholeness. Not just individually, but collectively.

Lately, I’ve started doing commissioned portraits that help my clients connect with lost loved ones. I hold space for my client’s grief, love, and longing while also tending to the spiritual and healing needs of the person they lost. This has been a powerful and incredibly rewarding process to develop. Often it involves multiple healers and mediums that I hire to support the client’s loved one energetically. Through these sessions I get to know them and familiarize myself with their essence so that I can then do a healing portrait session. Often, these paintings are a much longer and more in-depth process that unfolds differently depending on the client and their loved one. Working with someone that is not earth side has been an interesting expansion of my skills, up until a few years ago I would have scoffed at the very idea, but my spiritual sensitivity simply evolved naturally toward the unknown.

I think what sets me apart from other artists really is this incredible reservoir of almost 20 years of working with people’s bodies and how it’s brought about a natural insight into the spiritual, energetic, and psychological depth of our embodied experiences. This informs my work greatly, the impulse to paint is always originated in the body for me. I’m almost exclusively self taught through the process of experimentation and play, so I really feel unadulterated by ideas around how to do things the “right” way. This is a privilege and a joy as an artist. Spirit and intuition often inspires me and brings insightful ideas, but ultimately the wisdom in my body is really in charge of all my painting processes and healing sessions.

If there’s one thing I want my clients and followers to know it is this: Your body is exquisitely wise. Trust it.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“You have to work hard.” Gosh, this mentality really got me into trouble. I constantly felt guilty when relaxing. I had this “pushing” mentality around everything: learning, exercising, showering, working. All of it. I learned how to let go of this anxiety-provoking mentality about 5 years ago while doing The Feldenkrais Method, it was an embodied way for my nervous system to finally experience what it felt like to do things with as little effort as possible. Ease and efficiency were the paradigm of learning. Curiosity instead of needing to know the right answer. It was revolutionary! I don’t think I’d have even given myself permission to do art had I not unlearned this, because in my eyes it was not “productive” or “practical” enough.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I absolutely love the joy of sharing my work, it brings me so much healing to have my work witnessed and encouraged. For so long, I repressed my inner artist and to have her be free and be seen is the best medicine.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.caitlinschmitt.com
• Instagram: @anatomy_and_intuition
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-schmitt-14b4a330
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTGvSfOUTnJUhKnshznGX9g

Image Credits
Caitlin Schmitt