Last week I read a newsletter from an artist I recently started to follow and whose work I love. It was one of those 2023 round-up newsletters in which the artist went through every month of 2023 listing all their successes.
January: got that massive book deal I wanted
February: won an award
March: sold all my art
April: wrote my book
May: published my book
etc etc
(This isn’t an accurate quote, I’m exaggerating, but that’s what I read with my “everyone does more than me” brain.)
When I got to the end of the newsletter, I felt exhausted, and I couldn’t help thinking, Am I just the laziest artist on the planet? How did they achieve all of that in one year?! And how did they remember it all?
And then I remembered that some folks plan. And some folks even write their plan down in a book or app and then strike through each goal as it’s achieved.
Ahh, this artist must be one of those kind of people. The kind of people I definitely am not.
I lump all of “those kind of people” in with the folk who wake up at 5.30 am full of beans and have a morning ritual involving breath-work, morning pages, and the kind of cashmere lounge pants that I can only dream of.
I, on the other hand, awake with a huge gasp of oxygen as if I’ve risen from the dead, blink my eyes open and am amazed I made it through another night of fretful dreams in which I’m contacted by my old university to be told I didn’t actually graduate and there’s one more exam I need to take.
My morning ritual involves too many cups of tea, re-filling the birdfeeder, and utter bewilderment that I’m still alive.
I stayed alive! would be written next to every month in my 2023 round-up.
Last week I ticked off one of my bucket-list items—hurrah! I can now write Visited Joshua Tree beside the month of January in my smug round-up email to you next year ;)
Joshua Tree National Park was everything I expected and more beautiful than I imagined, but that planned trip wasn’t the best thing that happened last week.
The best thing about last week was something quite unexpected: a visit to a zoo! When did you last visit a zoo? And actually, to be precise, the best thing was seeing the giraffes. No shade on the other animals but the giraffes were spectacular. So spectacular Mr C and I walked around the entire zoo, looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Shall we take another look at the giraffes before we leave?”
We stood and watched as a family of giraffes drifted in unison across the mountain landscape, heads bobbing forward like an old-fashioned wind-up toy.
Their elegance had us in a trance. One giraffe embraced another by rubbing its horns on the long neck of its beloved. A youngster entwined its neck around its mother in the same way I twist that little piece of wire to close up the bag around a loaf of bread.
I’m pretty sure giraffes don’t have daily, weekly, monthly, goals.
Although who knows? Maybe these giraffes wake up and think, Today my goal is to entice five of those gullible humans to spend $10 on a lettuce leaf to feed me.
(Yes, it really did cost $10 for a lettuce leaf!)
In 2024 I want to walk through life like a giraffe.
With gentleness and grace.
And no long list of goals.
I had a tentative idea to paint my life in 2024—a visual diary kind of thing. I could easily go back to the studio now and paint my interpretation of Joshua Tree National Park. I’m sure I’d make a decent job of it. I could tick that dream off the list, make art about it and move on to my next life goal. I’d have the satisfaction of being able to say I set a goal AND completed a goal.
Job done! as Mr C loves to say.
BUT
The Mojave Desert has been painted a gazillion times. Do I really want to add another bleached-palette, abstracted Joshua Tree canvas to the canon of boho art?
How much more interesting would it be to go back to the studio and go rogue? Go off-plan?
What if I took back with me to the studio, not the Joshua Tree as I’d planned, but the she-wolf from the zoo; the one who had an awkward fall that resulted in a leg amputation and yet she still runs with her pack? What story could I create around her? What could she teach me about resilience and strength?
What would happen if I introduced her to my other characters: The grumpy woman I keep drawing who looks a little like me; the bobcat that wanders through the vegetable garden; the bluejays that chatter in the evening; the handmade pots I pick up from the thrift store; the flowers and plants growing in my garden. What adventures could that three-legged wolf and all my canvas friends have?
Shall we find out?
When our life is primarily viewed as a list of goals—stuff to achieve—we miss out on the beauty of the in-between places. I want to know what my over-achieving artist friend did in between ticking off their goals: Who did they love? When was their heart broken? What drove them to laughter? To tears?
If I told you only about my goals and whether I achieved them or not, I’d be missing out on sharing some of the best parts of my life. And although my best bits are not as exciting as winning an award or getting a book deal, they matter to me and I want to tell you about them.
Because that’s where the art is found: in between the goals, plans and achievements.
Good art can be planned. Goals help us action the plan.
But GREAT art happens in between the planning. Or when you abandon the plan halfway through and tune into your intuition.
Great art happens when you’ve spent eight hours painting in the studio and then to use up your paint, you quickly brush out a sketch that is fresher and more exciting than everything else you’ve created that day.
Or when there’s an unexpected light leak in your camera that makes you go ooh!
Or when you turn over your piece of embroidery and realise the abstract stitched work you’ve inadvertently created is far more interesting than the neat cross-stitch pattern you were painstakingly attempting to render on the front.
I can’t remember his exact words but one of my favourite contemporary painters, Tal R, says something like, Painters should always approach the canvas with a 50/50 mindset. 50% plan, 50% go with your gut.
That resonates with me. It’s a good approach to life too.
Make a plan but take the scissors to half of it and make room for the unexpected.
It’s Sunday morning. I’m editing this essay while Mr C and I await a call from an emergency plumber. After a lively Saturday evening with friends, we walked into our house to find water dripping from the kitchen ceiling. The temperature has been down as low as minus eleven degrees centigrade for a few days now and pipes are bursting like fireworks in older houses like ours. Having to remove the kitchen ceiling wasn’t in our January plan for the house renovation but I guess it is now!
I’d planned to sketch she-wolf today. Instead, I’m monitoring the level of water in the saucepans placed underneath the leak. I am imagining Soleil, the she-wolf lapping at the spillage on the floor.
When I was young, nobody told me that as you age unexpected events happen with increasing frequency. Maybe that’s why I’m so hesitant to plan and set goals: In the back of my mind there’s a little voice saying Hmmm, you know, maybe you should leave a little space in your schedule just in case you have an awkward fall and end up having your leg amputated!
Here’s to walking through 2024 like a giraffe with a 50/50 mindset and a three-legged she-wolf as a best friend.
Deep peace to you.
Until next time.
JC
A beautifully crafted post!!! I envy your writing ability and ideas here!! And yes to embracing the unexpected for adaptability is such an important muscle to exercise!!
Ah yes, I now feel less guilty about my lack of planning and goal setting! I journal, I write down ideas and loose plans, but day to day I have the luxury of plenty of space to just be, and am learning to enjoy it. That's not to say I haven't plenty of projects on the go, knitting and sewing etc.