The Creative Journey

Tired Creativity

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Making time for our creativity is something I think we can all struggle with. Often when we have the time we don’t have the energy and when we have the energy may be committed to other things such as job, family or just doing laundry.

I have often found myself in this cycle of needing, really needing to spend time with my art. I long to sit in my creative corner and paint or collage and to just get lost in the art of creating. More often than not the only time I have to do this is at the end of the day and the end of the day finds me tired. And usually it’s more than tired it’s the drain that comes with taking care of others all day with little focused energy on yourself. Or perhaps it’s the drain of spending your days focused on work that isn’t your passion-or worse-work that you really dislike doing.

It’s always surprising to me how often I put off that which I know I love most. The practices that make me smile or even better sigh with pure, unadulterated joy, are the ones that I put off the most and my creativity is no exception.

I do however pay attention. I take note of the habits and thoughts that run around in my brain. I try my best to be conscious of the choices I am making in each moment and it’s the times when I engage with my creativity that I noticed something you may have also experienced.

Creativity fuels me.

Creativity heals me.

Creativity releases the toxins, the sadness, the pain and it refills me with joy, truth and love.

It takes mere moments of me putting some color on a simple journal page for me to feel the calibration starting to happen. My energy raises, my mood lightens and I am rewarded by a feeling of rejuvenation I would not have thought possible a mere 5 minutes earlier.

I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to make time for my creativity when in reality I wanted to find time when I was at my best, fully awake and ready to go. I wanted hours upon hours of creative time. I wanted my creative time to be as long as-if not longer-than the time I spent at the day job.

Here’s what I have discovered about the beauty of creativity.

It’s there to heal us creatives. It is what keeps us moving through life, what keeps us reaching for the unconventional, the new, the non-mainstream. Creativity, unlike the day job, doesn’t demand from us our best. Instead it is like a loving grandmother, arms outstretched providing us with a safe place to rest. A place where we can dump all the hard and the taxing and leave with all that is bright, inspiring and real.

Instead of seeking ways to make time for my creativity, I challenge myself to just sit down at my workspace even if it’s with a cup of tea, feeling exhausted and completely lacking in inspiration. I might pick up a favorite material (current my Tempera paint sticks are my most favorite-so much fun for adding layers to a journal) and a simple composition notebook and just put some color on some paper. I am not seeking to make a masterpiece-or even to make anything at all. Instead I simply want to be with my creativity. To sit together, connect and just be. I start with a goal of 5 minutes. 5 minutes I sit there and doodle, scribble, paint or glue scraps to paper.

Almost every time I feel the energy flow in. I start to sit up straighter, smile maybe a bit and before I know it I am creating where just minutes before I was too exhausted to make myself some toast.

Creativity is a magical gift. It is there for you and you only need to knock on its door to feel the rewards. A Creative practice isn’t something that needs to be big or thought out-it is after all practice. You simply visit with it each day-and on the days when you want to skip it remind yourself that it’s then you need it most. It is the moments when you are lost, tired, sad, scared, frustrated that you need your creativity.

And it is always there for you.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Snow, Creativity & The Full Moon

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Happy Monday morning!

I am sitting at my kitchen table with a delicious cup of decaf coffee. Why decaf? Well I have learned (repeatedly because, well, human) that caffeine makes me anxious. Like, zombies are about to crash through the front door kinda anxious. So, decaf. I buy good stuff (yes, there is good decaf) and I make it in my french press with half-n-half (no sugar) so it’s quite yummy and I don’t miss the caffeine. Coffee was never something that woke me up and gave me energy. I have just enjoyed the ritual of it so the decaf serves me quite well.

Outside is blanketed in snow-I think about 3-4″ accumulated from late last night followed by rain. It’s also predicted to warm up so I imagine, like a typical Jersey snow it will rush in, look fabulous and then disappear before we know it only to return again at a later date as if it never left.

I had quite a bit of creative time this weekend. The moon is full today and that resulted in my usual crash of energy and need to retreat into the solitude of my creative corner and wrap myself up in books, paint and glue. I did some collage and I am prepping a new journal to utilize as a moon tracker for myself which I think will be fun. I am really focusing on making my art my own and to spend more time having fun and less time worrying about results. Having lived this life as long as I have I have never enjoyed myself when I focused simply on results. Results quickly turn things into chores and things that need to be weighed and judged as either worthy or unworthy and I usually stomp off in a huff taking my crayons and going home.

Instead, I want to enjoy my play time. I want to glue, paint, draw, doodle and just enjoy myself. I can’t possibly know where I am going but I believe with my whole heart that if I am present, aware and focused on Joy I really can’t go wrong and wherever I find myself will be quite lovely all around.

So today I am focused on making art and having fun while doing it. I am taking part in a swap where I am making a new art journal and recording the process. I will probably share that video over on my other blog but will try and link to it here if you are interested. It’s going to be a journal that myself and my swap partner will each make art in and go back and forth adding our own spins on it. I have never done anything like this and think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I also have quite a few sewing projects on my list and if I manage to get through any I will be sure to do a little round up of what I got to this week. I also hope to record you another podcast and I really would love to do a little studio chat where we can hang out together and make things. I love working alongside some of my favorite creatives so I thought I would create something similar for you here. I just need to work out a time where I can record uninterrupted. I’ll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime I hope your Monday is off to a lovely start and that you are able to get some creative time in. Please do comment below and let me know what you are working on. I would love to hear!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante.

 

Some things that are really inspiring me right now….

Susan Branch’s Blog: Her post today really inspired me to just get on with writing here and sharing a little bit about what I am up to. To connect and that’s what I found her blog to do.

Laly Mille’s Art Journaling for a New Year Course: This is a free course she is currently running and I just love watching other artists mix collage and paint and words. It’s by far my favorite way to create.

Making Space for Me

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Do you ever feel as if there isn’t space for you?

Often times I feel that I am so generous giving of my time and energy and physical space to others that it can appear there isn’t much left for me. I remember I went to a seminar one time and a woman arrived late and was looking around for a seat so I made room so she could sit next to me. Later she continual asked that I move my chair over so she had more room. So much so that if I moved any more I would be out in the aisle and I finally had to very firmly tell her no.

I often feel I have to hold boundaries. That my generosity is often met by others with a grab it before it’s gone type mentality until I feel I have been plucked clean of any space I had. What’s interesting is when I realize how much time and energy I spend making sure everyone has what they need-but me.

I mentioned in Monday’s post how I am recovering and resting. I have been longing to paint and it just felt like something I couldn’t do. Tonight I was watching an art class and I so wanted to take part but when I looked over I saw my desk was covered with all sorts of odds and ends.

I had no space to create.

And while I didn’t think I would paint I realized that as long as the desk was covered I wasn’t going to paint so I got up and cleared away the mess. It took maybe 15 minutes and my desk was clean and ready to use whenever I felt the urge to paint. I also found a scrap of paper that inspired me to make a random collage journal and a journal I had made a few months back that would be perfect for it!

Then I decided to sit down and paint. It was a short session while the kids got ready for bed but it was time for me. It was spaciousness that I gave myself as a gift. Just before I wrote this post I sat down for some more art time and I can already feel myself restoring from the gift of making space for myself. I am still working on the piece but I will share a photo here when it’s all done.

What can you do to make space for yourself? Is there something you can do to make things easier so when you are inspired to create you can just get down to the fun part? I would love to hear.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Claiming Your Creativity

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I am currently running on a wave of creative energy. Today I am working on a fairly in-depth project here at Dreaming Dilettante and as a part of that project I wanted to write a bit about how I started to not only make time for my creativity but to claim the time and how that made such a difference for me.

Before I go into claiming my creativity I wanted to share a realization I had. I have never in my life used the word “career” referring to myself and/or my own work. I spoke of jobs and work but never career. The realization was a bit of an eye-opener for me because I realized that I never felt any work I did before (for which I received a paycheck) was a career. They were always place holders for that thing I was eventually going to do. More recently though I didn’t feel I could use the word career because it can’t be that big of thing if you aren’t being paid for it right? If you aren’t receiving a paycheck regularly then it’s not a career or a job right?

So what is it?

When I decided to claim the weekend mornings for my creativity I shared the idea with my husband who thought it was a great idea (he’s kinda awesome). As I was talking about this idea of claiming the weekends I was able to see where my own personal blocks had been in really owning my creative time.

You see, I didn’t think I could make time for my creativity because I wasn’t being paid for it. How could I justify taking time each day just for my art? Now there is probably 3 books worth of delving into why I felt like that but suffice to say I just decided that was all kinda crap and I’m not going to think like that anymore. To help me along the way I was gifted with the realization that before any amazing creative was getting paid anything for their amazing creativity they, well, weren’t getting paid, but they still were being creative.

You have to write a book before you can get an agent and/or a publishing contract. So before any great writer was a published, getting paid great writer they were telling friends and family “sorry I’m writing, can’t.” At least I imagine they did. Or perhaps they squirreled away in the wee hours of the night writing secretly by candlelight.

Either way they made time to do the thing they loved to do simply because they loved to do it.

I realized that even if I never make a penny from all my creative endeavors I still love them. I still want to do them. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book “Big Magic” said she never asked anything from her writing she just showed up. I think that’s beautiful and it made me think of all the things I asked of my writing before I even gave it my full attention. How I begged it to give me a publishing contract so I could get out of that job before I even dedicated daily attention to the act of writing.

I was thinking of selling my art long before I connected with the essence of my art. Long before I really fell in love with making my art.

It was a bit like going on 2 dates with someone and asking for their undying loyalty and devotion when all you had done was have 2 meals with them and decide you kinda liked them.

My creativity deserves so much more than that. It deserves more than my taking time for it, more than me squeezing in a few stolen moments here and there.

It deserves my full devotion. In fact, when you find that thing you love to do. The one you would do whether or not you earned money from it. It’s more than a career or a job even if it pays you boatloads of money. That thing that’s not a career and not a job? It’s purpose. It’s the whole reason your soul hopped aboard this human ride. It deserves claiming.

So I claimed the weekend mornings. On the weekends for 3-4 hours I do my creative thing. I am in my tiny studio space, I light some incense (which really helps set the tone and creative energy) and I sit down and I play. I start with playing never with the intention of finishing anything or making anything. I just play with things that look like fun to play with. My first weekend I made cardboard buttons, air dry clay stars, a wooden 8×8 painting of a girl my son thinks is me, a new journal cover, set up a new journal and began the cover for one of my energy journals. I also slapped down a lot of paint in my sketchbooks and journals and overall just really had a great time.

For me, “taking time” feels like something I am stealing away with. I am taking time out or taking time with-it almost feels like I am pulling from one place and putting it somewhere else. “Claiming” the time feels powerful and strong and like I am declaring this space as my own. It just feels better.

I will be honest, I do hope to one day receive money for the work I do. I would love nothing more than to retire my husband and spend my days making art, sharing art, inspiring others to make and share art and making some money while I’m at it.

For now however I am going to spend some time getting to know my creativity. Take her out on some mini-adventures, maybe some dinners and really get to know who she is without making any demands of her-or myself. Right now we just want to play, get to know each other and have fun.

Here’s to courting our creativity.

Until next time…

-Michele aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Don’t Discount the Journey

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Welcome! I am so excited to be officially saying my site is live!! Oh she’s a little baby at the moment but soon she will be over-flowing with creativity, fun and inspiration.

I have learned a lot the past 2 months as I have delved into the creative project that is this site. I learned that:

*Too much inspiration can lead to comparison.
*That there is no theme, algorithm or business strategy that will replace putting pen to paper Each. And. Every. Day.
*That I often get lost in the end vision and forget that it takes the daily steps to reach it.
*And, again, nothing replaces sitting down and making art Every. Single. Day.
*That the daily journey, the play and exploration of art is what I love the most.

I read a quote attributed to Dave Grohl (if you don’t like cursing you may want to skip this paragraph) that said “Musicians should go to a garage sale and buy an old fucking drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck too. And then they’ll fucking start playing and they’ll have the best time they ever had in their lives and then all of a sudden they’ll become Nirvana. Just a bunch of guys that had some shitty old instruments and they got together and they started playing some noisy ass shit and they became the biggest band in the world. That can happen again!”

So often we look towards the end result. We seek the end game the goal of getting to a certain place where we believe, “yes! That is when I will have arrived.” The truth is there is no end game. No final destination except for the actual final destination. I am reminded over and over to not discount the journey.

The real goal for me is to remind myself daily how much I love to create. To feel the love and passion flow through me as I touch paint to canvas or pen to paper. To some days leave my art table ecstatic with what I have created and wanting to share it with the world. And other days to leave wondering when I forgot how to draw a stick figure.

It’s all good, it’s all perfect and it’s all part of the journey. Everything that happens between birth and the final destination is what matters most. The experiences, the passion we feel when we create (even if that passion is passionate frustration wondering why the stupid paints won’t do what you want them to when they did it just fine yesterday!) are what matters most.

So I will try and remind myself when I am distracted with end product type things (like learning how to turn the art I haven’t yet made into stickers) that perhaps it’s more important to sit down and make something. To enjoy the process again, to not worry so much of what purpose the art will have at the end of it’s journey and to instead, thank it for allowing me to tag along.