Is Your Creativity Simmering?

Every time I finish a new painting, I get hit from all sides. Satisfaction, excitement, and vulnerability are all part of the stew.

“Art evokes emotion. It doesn’t have to be a thing of beauty.” – Eli Broad

Sprinkle in a bit of megalomania or self-loathing, depending on the day, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I’m cooking up in the studio. What sprouted from the early years of my imagination has ended up, nurturing, torturing, and sustaining me well into my middle age.

Gabriel Mark Lipper – Still Life with Yams

We don’t need to worry too much about setting aside time to be creative. We are creativity! Sometimes we lack a clear sense of direction, but our creativity is always there. What’s not always there, is a clear way to express what’s bubbling beneath the surface.

When we’re out of practice, our creativity can feel like it’s been put on simmer. It can feel harder to access, but all of the ingredients are still there. It’s who we are. 

It can be easy to get mired in doubt when your path feels uncertain, but instead of stopping and ruminating on which is the right way, just continue to take little steps forward. Trust. Sprinkle out the seeds of potential in your garden of ideas. Whether it’s in the form of a million scribbles in your sketchbooks or half a dozen little forty-minute paintings, don’t make your art a big deal. The muse gets to choose which of your ideas will land. Just make sure that they all get watered.

Pressure may turn coal into diamonds, but the creation of diamonds also involves a lot of time. So now you have diamonds, self-loathing, and stew. Pick one.

Don’t beat yourself up for the time you may think you have wasted. The act of showing up for your art (and even powering through this email) is brave enough. Give yourself and your creativity room to wriggle through the hard resistant soil, form leaves, grow buds, and blossom. Life feeds your creativity until your creativity can stand on its own. Nothing happens all at once.

Your art isn’t you, but it comes from you. Or maybe, it comes through you. If you stay open to the process and allow your creativity with all of its gifts and flaws to show up on the canvas, your work is going to have real flavor. Stay hungry for your art. It’s Delicious.

How do you feel when you finish a painting?

What are you hungry for?

Is Your Creativity Simmering?