Creatively Stuck

During and after my latest exhibit I experienced a familiar decline in creative production. It took exhibiting a few times after graduate school to catch on to this now reoccurring trend. Even though I now come to expect a decline in creativity during and after an exhibit, it can still be frustrating. I used this time to reflect on this experience and other times in which I had lost the impulse to make. In my experience, getting stuck can be caused by a variety of reasons, but, I’ve narrowed it down to four major causes that affect me.

Causes of getting stuck:

Too much time: I make more and I am generally more creative when I am very busy. Recently, being hit by two spring breaks (from the two different schools I teach at) has not put a boost into my making but as rather taken a big chunk out of it.

Completing a big project: There’s so much energy going into the project, that once its completed there is a deflated feeling. What will I work on next?

Melancholy: In spite of what my husband may say, it happens to us all. It could be the weather, or too much partying, or a legitimate depression. Sooner or later the blues will get you, and keep you feeling heavy and unmotivated.

Uninspired: Being uninspired is a little like the chicken and the egg. If its not caused by melancholy, it will certainly cause it. Occasionally, I just don’t have any ideas.

I feel that within these obstacles are opportunities. Here are the solutions I try to implement after I have the awareness to realize that my art practice has slowed or stopped. Sometimes it takes a while to even realize that I’ve spent eight hours this week watching The Wire on DVD, not only because its gripping and addictive, but because I might be avoiding an obstacle. So after the light of awareness hits me, I try some of these transformations.

Problem: Too much time

Solutions:

The List:
Make lists. Make long term to do lists, but most importantly, make a list of accomplish-able tasks for the next day. Be sure to vary tasks, from the household, to the studio, to the recreational. Don’t try to punish yourself or make up for lost time by suddenly putting in 10 hours at the studio after a hiatus.

Volunteer:
Volunteer your time so you are more busy. Volunteer with an organization or just help your friend out with moving. Get out there and be helpful. You’ll feel great and productive and you’ll want to get back to work.

Get outside:
Just do something. Go to museums, galleries, socialize anything. Get out of your house. Break your routine.

Take a class/Join a club:
Meet new people, learn new things. Do something that seems totally non-art related.

Problem: Completed a big project

Solutions:

Give yourself a break (if you deserve it):
If you just completed a major show or a major project. Relax. There is generally a feeling of exhaustion from all the work or a post partum like depression. Give yourself some time to transition to the next project.

Catch up on the computer stuff:
Update your email list, and website. Do the clerical stuff you don’t have time for when you’re jammin in your studio.

Network:
Use your show as an opportunity to meet new people.

Look:
Look for new materials and new inspirations for your next projects.

Problem: Melancholy

Solutions:

Do Nothing:
No matter what, it will eventually pass. No really, it will. Sometimes what you resist, persists.

Wallow in it:
Better yet, use it as inspiration. Make drawings or simple notations of how you feel. All of experience is source material for your work, so don’t miss out on this just because it feels crappy.

Exercise:
Put it on your list of things to do and then do it. Elevating your heart rate will elevate your whole being. You don’t have to like it, but you just might after a while.

Read:
Read those books you’ve been meaning to get around to.

Just get to work:
Go to your studio and work, even if you feel crappy.

Problem: Uninspired

Solutions:

Meditation:
Continue your meditation practice, add more time or go on a retreat. Creating space in your mind will allow the next thing to bubble up. The first entry in google when searching “creatively stuck," says “Try Sitting With The Silence.”

Repeat:
Do something repetitive at home or in your studio. Allot a certain amount of time for this repetitive action and do it for the whole time. Repeat as needed.

Be patient:
.....

Finally some closing thoughts on staying creative.

Work without a purpose.
Draw something everyday.
Write by hand everyday.

Try Try Again

I am working on the last piece for my show this summer, White Moment.

My first idea for this was to have two casts of my head, made to look like the buddha heads, looking at each other. I want this piece to have a real self contemplation quality. Well after I asked two people to help me out by casting my head, and after I sat twice to have my face and head covered in plaster gauze, and I assembled them, I realized I didn't like them. They didn't really look like each other!

So then I thought I will use one of them, and have it looking into a mirror. But the problem with that is that the plaster cast doesn't have eyes.


Which reminds me the before I moved onto this step I bought and tried to install glass eyes into the plaster head because this piece is so much about looking, but they turned out SO freaky!

So now I am on the fourth try. I am literally sculpting my self portrait in clay. I must say its really not going well, but I've only worked on it for like 6 hours so far. I once made a really stunning life like portrait bust of a model, but working on myself is much more challenging. I am using the plaster cast heads for help, but for example, while working on the eyes, I need to take off my glasses and look in a mirror, but then I can't see so well.

So I'm hoping that even if this doesn't turn out very well technically and perfectly life like, that this process of looking and examination just to make the piece will come across conceptually. The sculpted head will be cast in white bees wax and be looking into a mirror.

Transformation

Since the New Year, I have been making many positive changes to my life. But I think the source of all this change actually came not from my free will, but because I had to stop drinking to take Accutane. Its not as though drinking were some kind of issue, but when it was absent I noticed how much a filler it can be, much like the other things I've phased out

Reductions:

• Not Drinking
  
• Quiting TV
• phasing out myspace
• checking email less

Additions:

• Revamping my studio
• Working on exciting ideas for my new show
• reading more
• going to see more art, going to museums
• collaborating with friends
  
• Volunteering and taking classes at Shambhala
  
• Re-committing to my daily meditation practice and trying to work with lojong
  
• Keeping this blog and my accutane blog
  

Without the time filler activities, I've been able to add in so many more positive activities. One down side is that the Accutane makes me feel like a lethargic arthritic old lady, so I haven't been exercising at all, and it is driving me crazy. I am looking forward to May, when my skin transformation is complete, the accutane is over, and I can maintain my new life style, but with energy.

The Art of Creativity

I've been working diligently towards my next show, happening in June at Northeastern Illinois University Gallery. I named the show "White Moment". It will feature new and "old" work integrated to create a new installation and new understanding of the "old" work. I am really excited about it. It’s almost as if I'm beginning to use my own previous works as found objects, and combine them together to recontextualize each other into new work. I feel liberated.

I googled "White Moment" before I sent it off to the curator as the title of my show, and the article "The Art of Creativity" from Psychology Today came up. I printed the whole article and taped it into my sketch book. There are so many interesting points articulated there that I have been trying to articulate myself about the direction of my work. I will be mining that article for new work and for my show statement.

I want to write a clear essay/statement for my show "White Moment” which articulates and explains my relationship to and my investigation into the relationship of art viewing, art making, and meditation. An article in the text “Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art” touches on the relationship between the three. I don’t mean to suggest that they are interdependent, but they are also not independent. The ideal moment of making, viewing and meditation is that of “no mind”.

"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few."
-SUZUKI-ROSHI

Wasted Time Wakes Up

The new year is off to a great start.

I am so busy.

After reading "The Evolving Self", I was really inspired to implement many of its ideas into my life, basically that a busy, intellectually challenged person is a happy person. Here are some of the things that I am doing to stay not just busy, but engaged in things that I are inspiring, challenging, and that I like to do.

- I am teaching three classes at two different schools. I am teaching two sections of Sculpture 1 at Loyola again this semester, and I am up grading some of the tools in the shop there too. I am teaching for the first time, General Drawing at Wright College, one of The Chicago City Colleges. Teaching at a new school has many obstacles of getting oriented, and teaching a new class has many curriculum needs. I have to build the whole class in a way that makes sense to me so that it will make sense to the students. I am reading "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", as a refresher. I also, for the first time, I ordered a free desk copy of a book recommended by a colleague. As a teacher I can request relevant texts for free from the publisher to review as optional text to offer in my courses. The book I ordered is "Drawing, A Contemporary Approach."

So I am technically teaching full time. Its been a long time now since I worked full time. And balancing all the different needs of different classes and institutions offers its own challenges.

- I bought a new sketchbook. 8x11", hardcover black. I love the bigger size. I had been using the trendy moleskin model, but it really doesn't work for me. I need a bigger book to paste things into. This alone has radically awakened some sleeping creativity.

- I started building the walls at my studio. I took this long weekend to get the project underway, and thanks to Michael's help I am more then 1/2 way there! These walls are going to help me so much, return to the installation practice that is really the foundation of my work and thinking.

- I am reading a really inspiring book, "Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art"

- I am watching almost no TV, and no network TV.

- Michael and I are following our New Years resolution to cook new recipes together at least once a week.

- I am meditating everyday, and meeting with my meditation instructor regularly. Meditation is not only good for me in terms of my mood or disposition, but it also leaves my mind loose, ply able and open. The fertile ground for new problems to be come new art.

So even though work is at times over whelming, I am trying to maintain time for my art and research, as well as a small social life, and a pleasant marriage. Balancing these things has been wonderful so far.