Lately I’ve felt a little unsure of how to begin new work. I’m getting stuck analyzing and wondering if I’m on the right track, if what I make will be good, and how it will be received. This self-talk is mean and immobilizing. I know the best and fastest ways to bring myself down.
This is where the reminders come in. I don’t write them when I’m feeling my best, when things are going as planned or when I’m in a flow state. I write them in the dip, the low points of my creative practice.
My new season reminders are:
How can you hold tension and not let it destroy you?
“Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while” - Sister Corita Kent
Turn it upside down
Play even when it feels difficult or silly
These reminders are an interruption and an acknowledgement of the tension and conflict in my work and life. Writing them down opens a tiny bit of space between the tightly wound rubber bands of my creative brain. I have come to trust myself more through these reminders. I don’t keep a traditional diary but when I look back on these notes to myself over the years they are a record of where I’ve been, what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.
Writing reminders is a tiny release and an opportunity to upend one path of thinking. Often writing the reminders opens up mental space for play because it allows me to give anxieties and doubts a home outside of my own head. The past several weeks I’ve been playing even when it feels silly, like there’s no time, like it’s not worth it. It’s clunky and clumsy. And also, it’s working.
How to play:
Trace the most interesting lines
Cut it up and rearrange it
Identify the best part and get rid of everything else around it
Invert some element of the work
Make a stencil
Set a timer and just do something for 3 minutes
Here’s a little bit of the work that has emerged from this play.
How do you play in your creative practice?
Now through September, I am an artist-in-residence at Riverside Art Center. This residency provides studio space in downtown Ypsilanti and I will be focusing on the role of the artist in archiving contentious debates about public space. This residency will engage neighbors, artists, activists, politicians, city workers and students in collage work. I just got the keys to my new studio and I can’t wait to get to work on this. Through the residency I will be offering public workshops so please keep an eye out for opportunities to make art together.
I also want to let you know that I have new large paintings available in my shop. As a newsletter subscriber you can enjoy 30% off for the next two weeks with the code TULIPTIME30.
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I needed to hear all of this. ever since i started making writing notes, it's been so helpful because they are really life notes. it gives me a greater perspective and often i realize, wow, i am much too hard on myself. thank you so much for sharing.