A practice of balance
When one way isn’t working, try another.
Move between mediums. If you are a writer, try working with some material that will cause you to use your hands. Make magnets out of air dry clay. Try candle making. Carve a linoleum block. If you’re a visual artist, try writing a poem, or singing a song. Nothing has to come of this. It does not have to be shared. Practice something that makes you use your body in a different way. When in doubt, dance.
Or, hone into your medium in a deeper way. Consider a one-month challenge where you draw every day for a month, or write a poem every day. Make something small for an elongated period of time to remind yourself that getting unstuck is often about flow.
Set a deadline for yourself. Jancie told me that she is making a creative contract, where she has to have a certain amount of words by a specific date or there is a punishment. I forget her punishment but I believe it was something like, someone is owed a certain amount of money. Consider taking serious measures like these.
Team up with a friend. Collaborate on a project together. See where you can work together.
Try out a new material! Look around you and find something you wouldn’t thing to use before. Try: leaves, old fabric, a seemingly mundane object with memory attached to it. Incorporate it in.
Have heroes. Don’t put them on too big of a pedestals so that you perceive them to be infallible (and then are totally let down when you learn they too, are humans who make mistakes and who you don’t always agree with). Have heroes that are older than you so that you have people to look to as guides. See what kind of life they live. Have them act as a guide that pulls you towards the future, especially in demoralizing times.
Put thoughts of money, career, and whether or not people will like what you’re making out of the making process. I know this is often the biggest deterrent to me wanting to make anything.
Find a person you are speaking to and don’t want to let down. For me, it’s my younger self. What would they say about the work? You don’t have to please everyone but it helps to have some spirit, sense, or person that you do want to please—even if it’s you.
Build relationships. Have people who also make things that you go on walks with. Remember that living is as much a part of making as making is. Get around a table and laugh.
Set rules. Follow a schedule. Go into all discipline.
Break your rules. Remember to have fun and enjoy. Be silly.
Focus on a motif. Make ten sculptures about salt. Make five blue paintings. Write a series of poems about baseball.
Take a creative risk. Remind yourself that often the most interesting parts of work are the small glitches and weird parts that show a human hand in the making.
Share the work in some way. Wheat paste it around town, self-publish, make prints and table events, post it onto a blog, email it out.
Accept that there will be times when you are too tired, too depleted, too burnt out to make any art work. It is tricky because at times, making something will restore you and uplift you, and you have to push through a lack of motivation to get there. When you are burnt out—go small. Try one doodle. Write one line of a poem. Write it in line at the bank, or in your notes app. Speak it into a voice memo. Play guitar for five minutes. See how it feels to get started, and go from there.
Have goals that guide you when you have completed one work. Mine tend to be things I want to make: I want to make a film, I want to make a photo book, I want to do a live experimental music performance, I want to write a novel. These guide me when I don’t know what’s next—even if it’s not linear. Write them down. Forget about them. They’re still there.
Check out art and reference books from the library. Go to the movies. Go to museums (often these have free days, or there may be virtual tours.) Study others’ work. Develop your interests. This develops your own aesthetic taste.
Allow and honor cycles. I cannot constantly perform, promote books, or make myself open to large groups of people. I need time to close myself off, lower my inputs, and see what comes from that. Every time it feels like a death period. Perhaps it is. Follow these cycles. Honor your need for solitude. Get quiet and listen.
Take a class. Try a new medium. Take an online free class (many universities, including Yale have free courses.) Incorporate what you learn, or simply take it in.
If life seems like it’s full of silly doldrums, and it’s all work work work, and no play—bring that into the work. Make the work a fun space where you can unwind. This will give the best creative stamina—more than ego chasing, more than trying to prove yourself. If you have fun doing it, you’ll want to keep at it.
That "find a person and don't let them down" trick is so powerful. I do that. I often try and write a certain thing like it's a letter to them and do everything I can to impress them.
Thanks for this!