Today: Because of overwhelming demand and the simple fact that I missed you, I am BACK with the BTS. The new show will run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from May until the end of July. Today we dive right in with thoughts about seasons, creating with what you have available and remembering that none of us is alone.
In each of our lives there will be many moments when we simply don’t know what to do.
In this week’s podcast I offer some helpful strategies for when that time inevitably occurs.
We’re so very busy, so very distracted and often so very tired. When life is so demanding, who has time for creativity? How can we play when there is so much work to do? How can we pick up our paintbrush when we haven’t tidied up our home? How can we dance when we haven’t done the laundry? How can write a poem when there’s dinner to be made?
And if we do, what will other people think? Will they see us as self-indulgent, deluded, weird? Will our family resent us taking time away from them for time for our creative hearts? Will they see our desire and our dreams and support them or dash them? Have we experienced that before?
So many questions lie between us and our creative time. So we go to Pinterest and pin what inspires us. We follow creatives on Instagram, join groups on Facebook and buy books and magazines to satisfy our artistic needs – and all of that inspires us but when we least expect it, it turns in on us too. Where once we felt raised, now we feel razed. Our inner critic viciously reminds us of all that we are not. Our creative hunger doubles us over like a stomach punch. The world seems like a dark, dark place where only a few, and certainly not you, are living the life you long for.
Sometimes it is easier to numb out than to feel that pain. It’s easier to buy paints for your daughter and watch her play instead of showing up to the canvas yourself. It’s easier to criticize the phony perfect lives of all those so-called creatives and all their fans who bought the hype than to admit that you’re aching for a piece of that dream. It’s easier to write in your journal over and over again your inner secrets than to risk taking even the smallest step.
You must take that step.
You must risk the vulnerability of exposing your creative heart.
You must risk going to the water and drinking your fill even if predators lurk.
If that creative thirst is in you, you simply must drink.
So often we believe that the safest route is the one that is most taken. Everyone we know works regular hours in an office environment so probably we should too. Having a steady paycheque and health benefits is a blessing. If you have an artistic leaning than probably the safest thing you can do is teach. Or maybe you could train in a more dependable field and do your art in the evenings and on the weekends. Until you have a family, of course, but don’t worry then you can do your art when you retire.
And if that works for you, amazing!
But if you are sad, if you are empty, if you are under-expressed and overly full, if you are heartbroken, if you are suffocating, if you are crying in the washroom stall at your regular job, then step up to the creative rivers and drink.
This does not have to involve quitting.
You do not need to suddenly leave your entire world behind to become a creative entrepreneur or a full-time art student or flog your wares on Etsy.
You don’t need to make a grand gesture, move to a new town or dress boho. Though, of course, you can.
All you have to do is create.
It’s that simple.
I know that doesn’t mean it’s easy. There will be feelings for you to feel, powerful ones, light and dark. There will be judgement from you and others and that will threaten to shut you down. There will be so much to learn that you’ll wake up to a whole world of what you don’t know and that may be overwhelming.
But you will be free.
Your heart will pour right out of you once it gets going. You will fumble and you will fail and you will discover and you will delight. You will laugh and you will cry and you will breathe once again and you will be alive. Most of all, you will remember who you are.
Welcome to your creative life.
In episode 61 not only do we share what we’ve been creating but we have a lot to noodle, including what makes something practice vs a “piece” (of art), when is something finished and how to combat resistance with obnoxious art and things that make you laugh.
In this episode we mention:
“To nourish and sustain motivation toward a creative goal, we must not only fall in love with a dream of our future self… but also love the process of becoming that person – including all the unglamorous, everyday hard work.” Wired to Create by Scott Barry Kaufman & Carolyn Gregoire.
I recently started getting up at 5:30 am a few of days of the week to go to the gym. At 5:30 am when the world is cold and dark it is easy to forget why I’m doing this. Goals like “feeling healthy and vital and good in my body” are so much more abstract than the sweet reality of another few hours in a warm, cozy bed with kittens curled up around me. Yum. No contest. I can start this fitness journey tomorrow, right? What’s one day later when the journey is long and the road is hard?
This line of thinking can apply to any goal, especially those where the distance between where we are and where we want to be is grand.
I want to launch my website and finally put my business on the map! But man, WordPress is harder than everyone says. I don’t think I’m ever going to understand it. I think I’ll do some research instead.
After years of creating, I really want to finally put on my own solo exhibit! Yes! But dang it, it is so awkward calling galleries and asking how it works. I’m kind of embarrassed that I don’t know what I’m doing. I think I’ll watch some Netflix instead.
I’ve always wanted to write a book. I can so imagine myself on a book tour but holy wow, do I ever get restless when I sit down to actually do the writing. This stuff is hard! Maybe I should stick to reading books instead. In fact, I think I’ll make a tea and do just that.
So what gets us to the launch, the show, the page, the gym?
Toughing it out? Discipline? I’ll be honest, that hasn’t worked for me. (If it works for you, more power to you!) What I’ve found is it may keep me going for a little bit but eventually it wears me down. It grinds the heart out of my dreams so that eventually I actually feel pretty good dropping my goal because at least it means the pain will stop. Instead, here’s what I have found works for me. I hope you find something here that works for you too.
I love the quiet of the early morning when most of the world is sleeping. I love watching the sky change colours as the sun comes up. I love a moment to cuddle with the kittens before I go. I love coming home from the gym, feeling like I’ve already accomplished something today, just in time to give Justin a big hug before he heads out to work.
What is there to love right here in this moment?
Remember the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down? Get creative and look for little ways to enhance the experience and make it a joy. With the gym, I’ve taken to buying cheap and goofy t-shirts. (This musical-loving sloth was $1.50 at Value Village.) It makes me giggle and take the whole thing way less seriously.
How can you work your creative magic on the right now?
It tickles me to think I am a person who gets up at 5:30 am in the morning and goes to the gym. That’s CRAZY but, you know, I kind of like crazy! That makes me beam at myself and feel good about who I am right now on the road to what I am creating.
Fill in the blank, “I am the person who__________ and I love that about myself!
This isn’t about distracting yourself from the hard bits or being a positive Polyanna. This is about living your dreams and loving your life! It’s about the creative wonder you are right here in this moment. Finding your way to fall in love with the process will help bring each of your dreams to life without you rushing through your life to get there. It’s about allowing yourself and your life to be transformed by creative magic.
One of the key ingredients of my studio life is being a lifelong learner. I am constantly enrolled in a class or classes and learning more about myself and my arts. As an instructor myself, I also love the opportunity to learn from other teachers and to become an ever better guide!
Rather spontaneously I signed up for Ali Edwards‘ photography class Lens of Joy. I’ve so enjoyed the beginning process of exploring my relationship to photography, thinking about my own art history with this medium and also about my voice as a photographer.
In a whole new way I understand the creative and personal legacy of my mom, who captured our entire lives through her lens and who bought me my first camera.
I’m also taking Summer Pierre’s Writing and Drawing Comics. I’ve had a lot of fun experiencing drawing drills and starting to work within the frame of a comic. It immediately brought me back to when I first started blogging. After being at it for a while, my ideas, stories and imaginings started to fit themselves into the blog format. Blogging became a framework for my imagination. I wonder if the same will happen with comics.
I’m reading Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire and finding myself highlighting more than I’m not, including…
‘Many highly creative people can vividly remember a “moment, an encounter, a book that they read, a performance that they attended, that spoke to them and led them to say, “This is the real me, this is what I would like to do, to devote my life to, going forward,” says psychologist Howard Gardner.’
I have a moment like that, a moment when the light went on and I knew that I was a dancer. More to come on that later.
In the studio lately I’ve been listening over and over and over again to Build Me Up from Bones by Sarah Jarosz. The whole album is a treasure.
And no Studio Diary would be complete without visitation from at least one of the kittens. Enjoy this moment with Shibumi.
Winter is having a hard time letting go of Toronto! I am thankful for more sunshine but I am ready for the snow to go.
Especially since last week my poor tulips and daffodils had started their journey in the garden. Every time I think of these spring flowers, I think of May Sarton and her book Plant Dreaming Deep. In it she talked about the battle of the bulbs that is waged every year with the surrounding wildlife. Whereas my solution has been to try to protect my few bulbs with this chicken wire, May chose to plant hundreds of bulbs, knowing that some of them would be her contribution to the winter diet of squirrels. I am inspired by that abundance and generosity. Perhaps next year I will plant dozens more.
In our neighbourhood it is not only the squirrels but also the raccoons that are out looking for food. I was surprised to see this one out in the middle of the day. Though they are super cute, they can really be a problem so we’d prefer not to feed them. Though we discovered a couple of years ago we were…
That was the end of the bird feeder!
It’s nice there is so much to experience right through my window because I’m tucked inside for a bit. Unfortunately, I’m under the weather so I am taking a couple of days to rest and hopefully kick this congestion to the curb. I’m curled up under the blankets, with kittens at my feet and a big pile of journals and books at the ready. Perhaps you’ll see some of these in an upcoming Creative Living Bookshelf! That is if I can stay up long enough to read them!
