september 1st

September 1st, its the beginning of things. It’s the beginning of the end of the year. At least in my head September has always felt like the beginning of the end. I’m happy to know that the sweltering heat is nearly past and its almost sweater time. I like the fall, mostly because it feels like the rest before the rest, it feels like the closest to what my heart looks like, but partly I like the fall because I like the word falling. 

This week I did what I could, which doesn’t look like much but I ate well and washed my face often and I tried. 

I got back into the studio yesterday and was immediately overwhelmed. To start with my work space was a mess, as it has been for months, and finally yesterday was the day I couldn’t take it anymore and tidied up the table that serves as my workstation. It was probably 20 minutes of finding homes for things and trying to remember how I had had it organized in the first place. But it was 20 minutes well spent, because at end not everything was cleaned up but I was less overwhelmed and that was the goal. 

The other portion that was overwhelming was that the only project I had on the go was daunting and frustrating. The first layer it currently has didn’t turn out how I had imagined and I was unsatisfied by it. But all the same I also didn’t know how to continue with it, I could roll with what I had made or start over and neither option felt easy. So I settled for starting a new canvas and pondering how I was to fix it while I worked. However I was immediately thwarted by the fact that I needed to prime the canvas first and that layer would need hours to dry. 

So once again I pivoted, I would add the layer of gesso and then with my newly procured space I would finally paint on the varnish to the paintings that have been finished for over a month. I’m not entirely certain why I’ve procrastinated the varnishing so much, other than the fact that I am new to varnish and am wary of it. And that’s just was I did, I cleaned, primed and varnished, that’s all. It was what I could do. 

It has been more than a week since I had done some work in my studio and when ever I come back from a break, intentional break or otherwise, I am often very overwhelmed by starting again. It’s like if you lost your place in a book, and then stopped reading long enough to even really remember what the plot was. Coming back, to start again, feels daunting and overwhelming. And I could let it stop me all together, or I can choose to find the smalls parts that I can do and go from there. 

It’s really easy to let the feeling of being overwhelmed win and it’t really easy find my self in spaces that are overwhelming. I think I just get overwhelmed easy but its okay because I’ve learned how to work through and with it. Often times that just means I have to break down tasks into manageable pieces, sometimes that means it takes me a bit longer to get things done but it ensure that things do indeed get done. 

So here’s my piece of advice: if you’ve been on a break from creativity, weather long or short, it’s okay to be overwhelmed and not know where to start. Just take it piece by piece, it’s okay if it takes a while, break down what it is you want to do into small steps that you can take one by one. It might not feel as organic or “artistic” as you might want it to but it’ll help to managed the overwhelmingness of it all. 

I hope this finds you well, and if it doesn’t I hope things start turning around for you. Happy creating and thanks for reading!