Welcome new readers! I generally start the month with an update on what’s happening in my own studio so that you can shout “Me too!” when I share my challenges and we all don’t feel so alone. I also secretly hope you’ll be able to enlighten me and steer me in the right direction - no pressure ;) This month I write about being stuck in a creative rut and wondering how to get out of it.
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Is it a rut or is it a transition? That’s what I’ve been wondering recently. Am I really stuck on a creative assembly line, spinning the art cogs too hard, or am I trying to escape the whole industry altogether?
I’m overworking my paintings: the lines have lost their spontaneity and are now just boundaries for color; I’m forcing rather than relaxing into the brush marks. It’s all generative, done before, boring. I want to destroy all my canvas work. I’m looking back at paintings I did last year and wondering why I can’t recreate the looseness of marks. Where did the freedom go? The more I worry about it, the worse my painting becomes.
I made a batch of kombucha so that I didn’t have to go downstairs to my studio. I also soaked and boiled a pot of heritage white beans with juniper berries and rosemary from my garden. I will eat well if I can’t paint anymore.
A robin made a nest right on top of two large, security light bulbs above the garage door. She blocked the sensor so the light was permanently on - it must have felt safe and cozy there for her. She laid three eggs and instead of checking my Instagram first thing in the morning, I checked that the robin was still protecting her little ones. It felt good to let nature take control of my schedule. Then one day she wasn’t there. She upped and left the nest and her three eggs.
All artists go through creative ruts: times when we feel we’re stuck in goopy mud, unable to move forward with anything fresh or original. I’m not sure you can paint/stitch/photograph/[insert your craft here] your way out of the stuckness - the more you wriggle the more stuck you become. If you’re stuck in the stuckness I have a few suggestions that might help, see what you think:
Take a break. Sometimes we need to step away from the work for a while and come back with fresh eyes.
Change medium. You might be using the wrong medium to say what you’re trying to say, try something different.
Go back to basics. Whatever that looks like for you, return to the foundational principles. For me, this is going back to drawing.
Go back to the last piece you made that you loved. What’s changed? Can you identify what elements make that piece successful that are lacking in your current work?
Take a class. Sometimes we’re stuck because we’re trying to execute something that we don’t yet have the skills for. Get on YouTube or enroll in your local art school. Even if it doesn’t help you’ll make new friends and pick up new skills.
Applying my own principles to myself - rarely happens but let me try this. ;)
I have actually taken an extended break from my studio while I was in London for two months. I came back with fresh eyes but clearly a damaged painting hand lol.
There may be something to changing the medium. I will try this and report back next month.
Going back to drawing, I am always up for this.
Hmmm, the last piece I loved…I need to go back a fair way.
I took two classes in London: a watercolour class and a screenprinting class. I LOVED refreshing my screenprinting skills and I think this might be a good way for me to develop my current ‘Leda and the Swan’ project.
I’ll let you know if any of these help me drag my painting off the color-by-numbers conveyor belt I’m currently on.
What would you add to the list?
I’m also seriously wondering if I’m in a time of creative transition. I’m writing a lot. Like all the time. I have some creative writing that I don’t know where to place and I have a year’s worth of substack posts lined up. I have goals of publishing zines, books, journals. I want to start a Wild Creative Writing group. I want to put all my old Wild Creative courses and emails into beautiful handmade books with deckled-edge pages and quirky line drawings and splashes of watercolour paint and stitched bindings. I’m excited about this. I just enrolled in a poetry class. (Have I ever told you my dream as a teenager was to become a poet and live in a New York loft apartment?)
But I know even attempting a tiny part of all that means I will have to free up time and space. Less painting more writing. That feels scary to me. Can I leave my eggs behind like the robin?
Until next time
JC
RESOURCES THAT I AM….
This short video:
This lovely stop motion by Maria Epp encourages me to take a breath, slow down, and not worry so much
Returning to this amazing book by multi-disciplinary artist, Derek Jarman:
Nature is so lovely. We have baby chickadees we can hear from our front door as they live in the birdhouse just to the right of the door... and it's so soothing to just see the birds flit in and out feeding the babies <3 I'm loving this time of year, creatively speaking. Trying to capture all the sunlight, literally :)