Time and Light Switches

  In the opening paragraph of last weeks post I said I didn’t want to give advise that I myself didn’t take, so this week I went back to painting. It was scary and I had to just do it without thinking too hard about it, or else I would’ve continued to run from it. I was having an off day and it occurred to me that in order to authentically talk about the creative process I needed to be active in my own creative process. So I went back to painting before I could talk myself out of it.   I’ve been working on a series of skyscape paintings since last fall, like land scapes but all the focus is on the sky. And it’s been a slow process. The inspiration came from a painting that I had done as a senior art project in high school. Basically I wanted to take the original painting and extrapolate from it. But everything seems to keep getting in my way of actually finishing any of the paintings. First regular old self doubt, then an extended 3 month trip to the USA, then poor mental he...

I had a new post halfway written for this week, but I felt I needed to be honest about where I was with my own creative process. Because I only want to give advise and share wisdom that I myself act upon. I only want to talk the talk if I’m going to walk the walk. So I’m going to be honest and a little bit vulnerable.   My creative process is extremely closely tied to my mental health. So much so that one is always impacted by the other, and lately things have been difficult. So I haven’t painted in three weeks, and I miss it. But I can’t seem to bring myself to pick up the brush. I tried drawing a few days ago and promptly lost interest. It’s just been one of those seasons, one that’s lasted for far longer than I would like.  You see sometimes the creativity flows like a raging waterfall and it take nearly no effort on my part to feel motivated to create. And sometimes the difficult circumstances that life throws at you get in the way, they get heavy and the fog gets hard...

Last week I talked about perfectionism and how it can and is crippling to the creative process. Often times in our modern day society being a perfectionist is heralded as a strength and desirable quality. I believe people have mistaken perfectionism for a value of excellence.   Perfectionism says your value is in what you do, not in who you are. Perfectionism says there is no room for mistakes and there is no such thing as second chances. Perfectionism is all about doing it right the first time and completely forgets about practice and stewardship. Perfectionism is all rooted in fear, of either failure or success.  Striving for excellence is wanting to do things well, it’s wanting to do a job well done. To become excellent you must first be mediocre, and that’s a truth few want to learn. It is often what leads to the cheap knockoff of perfectionism. Excellence takes work and it takes stewardship, neither of which can be attained overnight.  Perfection can never be a...

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned as of late is to finish what I start. If I’m writing a short story I need to give it an ending, even if it’s a crappy one. If I’m painting a landscape I need to render all the layers not stop at the mountains. I’ve been learning that leaving projects half finished and not fully realized is unhealthy for my creative process.   Often times when projects, whether paintings or writings, get left unfinished it comes down to one of three things. Either because I don’t know where to take the project and I’m not sure what to do, or I know exactly what I want it to look like and I can’t figure out how to make it look the way I want. It’s either poor planning or its perfectionism and procrastination. They say that comparison is what kills creativity, but poor planning, perfectionism, and procrastination are what stop creativity in its tracks.  Procrastination comes in all shapes and sizes. When it is just procrastinating that’s the problem it ...