Creative Inertia

Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment.

It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones. 

-Bruce Garrabrandt

Art supplies can be just as beautiful as the art created from them. These Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water soluble pastels are one of my favorite examples. I love to just run my fingers over them.

I haven’t been feeling inspired this week. At all. My bones have been feeling like someone snuck in while I was sleeping and filled them with lead. All I wanted to do was lie in bed and continue my Outlander binge. (Said binge, maaaaaay have had a causal relationship to my lethargic mood and lack of motivation. More on why, in a bit.)

I woke up this morning thinking “Oh, it’s Saturday...I better get on this. I need to have it ready to go for Monday Morning.” (The joke is on me. I lost a day somewhere, and I’m now doing this all on late Sunday afternoon.) The problem was, I still wasn’t feeling inspired. I had no idea what to write about, or what photo I wanted to take.

I decided to go into my craft room, where I have a jumble of things set up in front of the window to do still life. My intent was to play around and see what happened. I started with a tiny vase of dried flowers, then pulled out a can of paint brushes and a few tubes of paint, then decided to play with the wax pastels you see above. Each set up led me deeper into the process, in the experience of what I was doing.

That’s when I realized what this week’s topic would be - creating inspiration rather than waiting on it. I read a clever quote long ago that said basically that if you are waiting for inspiration, that you aren’t an artist, you’re a waiter. I’ve rediscovered the truth of it over and over through the decades, today being only the latest in a long string of reminders that I am in control of how inspired I feel.

The more I create, the more creative I feel. The less I create, the less creative I feel. Any small act can lead to the next, and like winding a ball of yarn, it eventually becomes much larger than what you started with. (Remember how I suggested that my Outlander binge may have caused my lack of inspiration? This is why. Whatever we are doing is what we want to keep doing, unless we get bored.)

If you don’t feel inspired, do something small to open the window to your curiosity. Find a single interesting object. Pull out your cell phone and take a photo of it from above, then down at an angle, then straight on, then looking up at an angle. Turn it (or move around it) for a different view. Move your phone a few millimeters this way or that way and see how different it looks. Step out of the “one and done” mentality and explore. Can you make us see it in a way we don’t usually see it? Can you make us think? For example, what if your thing were a beat up old baseball, and you decided to add a pair of worn out pointe shoes with tattered laces? That would be a very different story.

Paint brushes are another thing I like to play with, just to feel the texture as I run my hand over them. What textures inspire you?

This week’s invitation:

Find an object that you’re interested in and use your camera, cell phone, or art supplies to capture it from different angles. Or write 10 separate sentences about the object and pick the best three to share, or use one as a writing prompt. Tell us what you discover in the process!

Use the hashtag #seektinydelights and tag me on Instagram or Facebook @thekimfluence so we can all be inspired by it!

On my mind:

• I am a sucker for a good story. Once I am caught up in one, I don’t want to let it go, until it’s done. (See above.) And, even then, I mourn it’s ending. I know this about myself, so I have to be cautious about how often I begin a tv series or a book. I choose them carefully.

• A thing may not have reached its final expression of beauty, and still be beautiful enough to take someone’s breath away. Think of the acorn. Is it any less magical, in it’s own way, than the oak it will eventually become? 

• We can’t always be ON. We have to allow periods of rest. Sometimes for longer periods than we may like. At the same time, we have to be wary of lingering there out of habit or sluggishness. There is an ebb and flow to it all that needs to be honored. 

Seek Tiny Delights

Dogwood blossom on a misty day. I stopped to take this photo on my way home from the hardware store to buy soil for our garden. I could have driven by with nothing more than a moments thought. Instead, I pulled over to admire the blossoms.

Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire
Even the worm is beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
On a rainy night 
Chasing the red-haired girl
Baudelaire
Across the sky
Your raggy pants
Laughing at the rain new line beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire

– Jack Michelin 

I didn't always have an eye for finding beauty in odd places. I didn't always notice the tiny delights all around me. For more than 30 years I careened through my days, lost in my inner world, giving no thought to random treasures I might be missing.

It was my husband who gave me that boundless gift. I can't imagine my life without it, now. He still notices things that I do not. 

How often does he point out a caterpillar, or call me outside to marvel at the swirling mist, as it slides down our roof and across the drive? These moments are among my favorite, in a lifetime of wonder.

On a meandering walk around Portland within a few months of meeting, he found a cedar rose and gave it to me, presenting it as a precious offering. I still smile every time I see it. 

15 years together has opened my eyes to hidden beauty everywhere. Look up, look down, turn in a circle. It's somewhere within view. I often find it in tiny details outside...fungus on a branch, a cluster of acorns on a mossy rock, intertwined trees…

Just as frequently, I find it in rust, decay, and muck. Recently, I was riveted by the beauty of the goop left over from an oil change on my husband's bike. It reminded me of the surface of Jupiter. I couldn't stop staring.

If you are afraid that you just don't have a knack for finding beauty, I'm here to tell you that it only takes opening your eyes and a willingness to set aside judgments about where it does and does not reside.

In this blog, I am inviting you on a perpetual journey, with no beginning and no end, that can be picked up anytime, no matter how often you are distracted from it, or how little time you have to devote to it.

This week's invitation:

Go outside if possible, or just look around the room you are in. Don't forget to look above you and down
at the ground or floor.

Photograph, draw, paint, or write about what you see...some small detail you might never have noticed.
(Or write a song, or do an interpretive dance!) I would love to see or hear it! 

Use the hashtag #seektinydelights and tag me on Instagram or Facebook @thekimfluence so we can
all be inspired by what you find! 

On my mind:

• I was listening to my new favorite podcast (A Beautiful Anarchy, with David duChemin) this morning. This week, he was offering his thoughts on making art that touches the heart. This, to me, is the key to reaching others with your creative pursuits. It’s not how well you wield your tools (though honing your skill certainly helps). It’s how much of yourself you are willing to share, how far into your world, your mind, your soul you are willing to allow others access.

• Over the weekend, I shared my blog related struggles with my dear friend and mentor, Stacy Vajta. Namely, that I enjoy writing longhand, in my journal, far more than composing posts on the keyboard. But that I also absolutely loathe transcribing. (I never learned to type well without looking at the keyboard, so it takes forever.) And that I’ve tried a dozen different dictation apps, but none seem to understand my southern accent. (Is it really that deep?) She suggested I try the dictation function on Google Docs, so I gave it a shot, expecting to be disappointed. But, ya’ll...it worked! Now I can write my posts in my journal, sitting on the porch, sipping tea, then effortlessly get them onto the computer to share with you! Squeeeeee!

• Tensions are running high right now. If we can all do our very best to see past bristly behavior, to the pain and worry underneath, and to respond with compassion, our days will be far more bearable, than if we allow our knee jerk reactions to take over. I’m writing this to myself, as much as to you. May all of our days be a little easier with this practice. 

And Suddenly, the Floodgates Have Re-opened

the first of my new series, which I haven’t named, yet

This hasn’t happened to me in a very long time. Back when I was painting regularly (maybe 15 years ago), it was so common, I gave it a name (Monsoon Season). But this time, its a completely different experience.

Back then, I would get absolutely flooded by ideas, and be so frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t get to them all, that I would rarely get around to any of them. Then, as the ideas stopped flooding in, the pendulum would swing to The Drought, during which time I was too uninspired to create any of the images I had so desperately wanted to create, only weeks before. It was a vicious cycle. The only time I generally got anything done was in between The Drought and the next Monsoon.

This time, the flood gates opened because I was making art, and making it without the usual judgement and fear that has been my almost constant companion any time I step in front of a canvas.

I had an idea for a series some time ago and I sat on it, allowing it to germinate. I thought of variations. I drew sketches (which I never do). I let the ideas consume me for weeks, before I ever started prepping the first canvas.

A few days ago, about the same time I decided it was time to start the first piece in the series, I began listening to several new podcasts that I am now totally in love with (Write Life, The Empowered Creative, Do It For the Process, and Make Share Grow), and feeling super inspired.

I was in the middle of creating that first piece as I listened to “Episode 1: 14 Ways to Remain Inspired and ALIVE in Your Creativity” of Do It For the Process, and something inside of me broke open. It was almost like a sob of relief racked my body, but with no sound and no jerking, and yet, most definitely an overwhelming physical sensation accompanied by deep emotion. I found myself putting marks on a canvas and knowing that it didn’t matter at all if it didn’t turn out like I was hoping! (Yes, however long I may have struggled to grasp this concept, it was a serious revelation! Maybe because I have struggled so long.)

Why did I suddenly feel this way? It’s a bit of a mystery. Part of it may be the materials I had settled on. (I got a massive sheet of foam insulation for under $20 and have enough canvases to paint for a few weeks). Part of it may be finally reaching an age when I just don’t care so much what people might think of me. (There are gifts to aging, kiddos, believe it, or not!) Maybe the confidence of my growing photography skills seeped into my painting process.

a few of the many variations I’ve sketched

Or, maybe it was finally just TIME.

Time to break open. Time to pour out what has been crammed inside. Time to unfurl. (I love that word!) Time to reach, stretch, and grow.

So, I’m rolling with it. And it feels amazing.

To celebrate, and to ride the wave, I’ve decided to do a 30 Day Mixed Media Challenge, of my own devising. Because I have always wanted to work in a series, but never have offered myself the discipline to do it, until now.

Here are my chosen boundaries:
-foam insulation as a canvas
-some sort of rough texture applied to canvas (plaster, paper maché, cheesecloth, etc)
-neutral colors
-at least one element that doesn’t immediately spring to mind when thinking of painting/drawing (twigs, rocks, wire, whatever)

Every day, I will do at least one tiny little part of a piece. Cut out the foam. Plaster it. Add a single mark. Whatever. It can be three seconds, and it can get painted over the next day, but something will be done.

prepped canvases, waiting for their turn

At the end of the month, I will have a series. And I will open an online shop for my mixed media work, alongside my still life prints. I may even approach some local galleries! It’s long been a dream of mine to have my work hanging in a gallery. So, yeah…I am committing right now, in front of all of you, to make that leap and see what happens. (SQUEEEEEE!!! Wish me luck!)

Also at the end of the month, unless I am still immersed in this series, I will start a new series based off of my favorite of all of my old painting - the peapods, something I’ve been intending for probably 10 years now.

You know what the most interesting thing about this whole process? How dead on my teacher from many, many years ago was when he said that choosing to create (at least for a given period of time) within a set of self-selected limitations creates a wild freedom to your creativity. My mind is blown. I don’t have to step in front of the canvas and wonder what I’m going to create. I already know that much. I can focus on which color of 30 (rather than 300) that I’m going to work with. I can focus on what sort of mark I want to make to balance that element in the other corner. I can be so much more specific about my choices.

The thing is, I have always approached my creative pursuits in the spirit of freestyling, which I love! And many good things have come of it. But in working with still life photography, I have discovered the joys of being more methodical. Of (gasp!) pre-planning! I am stunned at how much easier it makes the process of putting paint to canvas. Fewer decisions, less stress and self-doubt. At the same time, I cant wait to see what happens next time I am facing a blank canvas with no plan. I think the whole thing will have shifted. Who knows? That’s part of what makes art exciting. You never really know what’s just around the corner.

The Art of Self-Sabotage

“We are the only species on earth capable of preventing our own flowering.” – David Whyte

Looking back on my 20s and 30s, I realize I devoted a great deal of energy into self-defeating behaviors. When I found something that was good for me, or that I enjoyed, I would either make excuses to avoid it, or convince myself that my efforts were pitiful and therefore pointless.

I was so busy vacillating between neglecting myself and beating myself up, that it never occurred to me that I had locked my own cage, and was balled up in the corner, lamenting my situation, while clutching the key so tightly that I began to bleed.

The dawning of that realization was long and slow. I was committed to my suffering. (More on that topic in a later post.) I thought it was creative fuel. I thought it made me deep. I thought I had no real identity without it.

But, as I turned away from those who hurt and used me, who created drama and destruction in my life, and opened up to those who lifted me up and cheered me on, I began to see that I wasn’t treating myself with the respect and compassion that fueled my interactions with the people I cared about. I realized that there was still one more person to cut loose – me.

I had to make some significant personal changes. I had to start being kind to myself and accepting my own mistakes as easily as I accepted the mistakes of others. I had to stop denying myself simple things that contributed to my well-being. I had to stop stomping on my creative endeavors.

These changes are still in progress. I get better at it all the time, and there is always more space to grow into.

Do I regret all of the time I spent sobbing in the corner?

Yes and no. I can’t help wondering what I might have created by this point, if I had not been so bent on being miserable. But, at the same time, that darkness is the substrate of who I am today and has given me greater compassion for suffering, a better understanding of destructive behavior, and a great deal of gratitude for making it out of that chaos, whole and unbroken, in spite of my previous certainty that I was irreparably damaged.

Because I have been able to extract these beautiful gifts from my emotional lockdown, I don’t waste time on wishing I had opened my eyes earlier in life. Instead, I focus on building a new life of adventure, courage, and enthusiasm right on top of the rubble.

Do you self-sabotage? Have you found a way to treat yourself with more kindness? I’d love to hear your story! Comment below to continue the conversation.