June 13, 2011

Sabotaging your creativity...

Today, for the first time in a long while there is no pressure at all. I do not have to prepare a show or a presentation, there are no important meetings or conferences to go to. There’s just me and my artwork and it feels amazing! 

This morning I read this very inspiring blogpost by a teacher and fellow artist who wrote about time management and the way we artists always manage to undermine our own creativity by being too busy with life. I am SO guilty of that which is crazy because I don’t have any kids, I do not have a 9-5 job I have to go to, I am so fortunate that I can spent all my time on being an artist and still life manages to get in the way. Sometimes it feels like I’m being suffocated, I have all these ideas in my head, so many projects I want to work on and I feel like I will never be able to fit it all in. 

Reading Stewarts blog post made me realize I am the one to blame for not spending enough time in my studio. I am very guilty of wanting to please all the people in my life and being afraid of being thought of as selfish just because I need time to create. 

Being an artist is hard work. Creating a piece is a very exhausting and emotionally draining process and on top of that my work is usually very time consuming by nature. But that’s just a part of it. If you want to be successful as an artist you have to do promotion, organize shows, meet gallery owners connect with other artists, all of which takes time. And in the digital age there’s also time to be spent on updating your website and your blog, keeping up with Facebook and Twitter. 

Every week I keep thinking, “if I could just spend one week solely in my studio without having to meet people or deal with anything but my art, then everything will be alright” and every week I am disappointed because there’s something that gets in the way of that and that makes me frustrated and angry. Not being able to spent enough time in my studio makes me irritable and grumpy, which I take out on the people I love most. 

So I have decided to change my way of thinking because I am sabotaging my own creativity. Instead of hoping for a whole week of being undisturbed I am going to look for either a morning or afternoon. I figure I should be able to get me one of those on a regular basis, dare I say a daily basis even. This should get rid of the disappointments and make me less irritable which would be better for me, my art and my loved ones. I always had it into my head that I need an entire day in the studio to be able to create anything worthwhile but last week I spent only a couple of hours and was able to start about five experimental collage pieces. From now on I will take every hour I can get and spend it in my studio, heck maybe I’ll surprise myself :-))

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