Art and Creativity: The Impossibility of Being Creative on Demand
Another two-week absence from blogging is more or less a manifestation of another two-week absence from being creative.
Lately, I've been struggling with one of my old challenges: how to talk myself into being creative and sitting down to make something artistic when I absolutely don't feel like doing so.
I'd rather be on the beach!
I remember reading a magazine article by a "Creativity Coach" many years ago, in which she was talking primarily to creative writers but she made the quite valid point that writing is a practice and you have to sit down and write something every day regardless of whether or not you feel like it.
That particular hurdle has always been one of my most challenging to deal with.
It would be easy to simply lay the blame at the foot of the eternal excuse of "being too busy" with other stuff, but that is necessarily true... although I do have a lot of things going on at the moment.
However, my creativity is mostly being channeled into growing a garden these days and somehow I feel like I have lately been lacking the patience needed to sit down, get centered in a meditative space, and then starting to paint mandalas on rocks.
Which is ironic, because waiting for plants to grow requires a lot of patience!
I am actually feeling a little bit impatient with myself because we are entering the summer months now. That means that we are standing on the threshold of Arts and Crafts Show season... and I haven't really done a whole lot too get myself prepared.
In fact, I haven't even finalized our show schedule, yet.
Sometimes it feels like being in the creative doldrums isn't a problem that is necessarily specific to just myself, in-so-much-as my wife — who's also an artist — has been feeling much the same way and has not touched her own creative space for at least two months now.
Maybe it sounds like a lame excuse, but my creativity has always ebbed and flowed... and how I feel about the greater direction of Life often plays a major role in that.
And, to be honest, life is sort of been sucking a fair bit for the past three months in the sense that it feels like we've just not been able to catch a break, and we have received one piece of bad news after another. I find it very difficult to be creative when I'm in a sour sort of mood.
Sure, I realize there are always books and tips and online articles I can read to help myself get jump started... but I don't even feel inspired to read those at the moment. More than anything, I just want to go on a trip and get away from the whole circus of life for a while and just not have to think about work or creativity or anything related.
Not an ideal attitude!
Meanwhile, I still have a Hivelist store to get set up and populated with products from from my now defunct eBay store.
So it's not like I have a shortage of things to do! And some of them aren't necessarily particularly creative but they still relate to promoting my artwork and so they are still an intricate part of the greater picture.
No worries, I'll get over myself soon!
Thanks for visiting! Feel free to leave a comment, if you feel so inspired... engagement is part of what makes Hive such a cool venue!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
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2023.06.03 AS-TXT-159/127
I feel this, and tbh I think it's quite normal. I mean, sure - some creative types can do that "it's a practice/work/schedule/chore" thing, but a LOT of us cannot. As they say, creatives need down time when we are not doing anything, in order to think and dream and imagine, to get inspiration. And especially when life is sucking, we're naturally preoccupied with stress, and it's not exactly fertile ground for creating new things.
I have never functioned well with schedules in any capacity - I can't even sleep on a schedule - but our modern world wants EVERYTHING to be on a schedule, and for us always to be productive. But we're not machines, we're humans. And expecting art to come on demand like it's Netflix or fast food is just silly, imo.
You'll find your muse again! 💜