Nurturing Your Creativity

 

 

“Although many people are just Sunday painters, it can take more than the couple of hours left after the crossword puzzle and cup of coffee to get into the mood to make a masterpiece.  Once a month (or more if you can) create an open-ended day allowing yourself to move through a number of moods, energy levels, and epiphanous artistic moments.  Better still, take a week-long ceramics vacation soaking in clay (or whatever your medium is) and the company of others wo thrive on that medium.  Total immersion might be just what it takes to reach a critical creative mass.” – Lynn Gordon

My dear friend, Bonnie Porter, gave me a whole lot of “birthday in a bag”.  One of those wonderful creative things was a small card deck of inspiration called “52 Ways To Nurture Your Creativity”.  Each of the 52 cards is perfect for my blogging, as she said.  And so, here goes my first card pick.

 

Today is dedicated to a “do nothing” day.  Well, do nothing but art.  Going to try some new art techniques.  Going to try some fromage art.  I am letting my poor psyche heal after some weeks of turmoil.  And, I have washed every sheet and blanket in the house for days and I have it all done.  It took a bashing.  I am going to smudge my house and self, make sure I ward off any negativity.  I am hushing the critical inner voice that says there is so much more to do.  I hit a burn-out, emotionally, and I need to refill, refuel, and I acknowledge that self-care days are so very important.  Art heals me.  I will immerse myself in that. 

I do not know about you, but I get tired of the busyness and work ethic I have kept all my life.  I am weary.  We can get caught in the “musts” until we can no longer sustain the energy it takes to do it all.  Perhaps we all hit a time when we get obsessed with everything but simply “Being”.  We view idleness as a sin of sorts.  No matter how overwhelmed and exhaustion we continue to drive ourselves still feeling the guilt of what else “needs” to be done.    We are anxious and stressed beings who need to cut themselves a break. 

Have we forgotten how to just BE?  Have we forgotten what it is to simply settle down and settle in to daydream, allow intuition to take us away in a full day of arting/creating.   The sweetness of falling into that timeless space of creation is worth a thousand hours of sleep to me. 

Somehow we have to rid ourselves of this overriding stress and guilt of “stopping in the woods”. 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It is a social enigma that we are constantly told, in some way, to keep on keeping on.  We have to come to a place where we can stop and simply breathe, to create art, or whatever you do creatively, all day long.  Perhaps you need a walk in the woods to enjoy and wonder at nature.  Perhaps we all need to sit out under the night sky and watch the birds draw the plastic of night back like a curtain.  Perhaps we need to find a quiet corner and read all day.  Our value as a human being does not depend on how much we get done.  Things go on without us working every moment of the day.

How do you disconnect, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually?  Do you take an afternoon nap?  Do you just sit and wonder?  Do you turn off social media and the tv and sit in the quiet?  How much work do you do, mindlessly?  I told you about the list in my head.  I can even shut that off if I sense a need to simply stop and take a self-care break.  It is hard to stop our body from working.  I am a stress worker.  Instead of sitting down and figuring out why I am stressed and solve the problem, I work like a banshee.  I have to learn, yet, to still my body.  It is hard to turn the thinking off.  I know.  It is hard to stop an unsettled mood but we can.  It is difficult to let the soul speak in a quiet moment or two or hour or day.  I have learned to nurture those four aspects of my life.  I do not always do it, but I do try.

Many regrets in older age are all about doing too much, not doing enough, and simply allowing peace to fill the body, mind, heart and soul.  Let us not regret that we did not take time to simply BE.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.14.22

I meant to try some fromage, it did not work... my substrate was too thick.  So, I simply modified it all and ended up with something I quite love. It is done used elements of dyed teabags, a little girl torn from the National Geographic, word strip from a calligraphy book Bonnie Porter gave me, and gold leaf.  This is 76/100 collages I mean to do by the end of this year.