Tag: creative block

Time Flies

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I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything on my blog since Thanksgiving. Winter sped by, and it dragged by at the same time. I started paintings but didn’t finish them. I stopped writing in my journal. I did work in my sketchbook, but am only just now figuring out how I want to proceed with my art and creativity in the future.

My winter brain, journal entry

Like most people, I get a bit of the winter blues, but these warmer, longer days are stirring up ideas, and that creative warrior spirit. I have been doodling. Gotten more familiar with my watercolors again. I remembered how much I love just drawing and visual journaling.

No idea, journal entry

Over the winter I got a new computer because my old one was no longer going to be supported by Windows. I’ve had a hard time getting used to the new one, getting files transferred, and getting my scans to look clear. I’m also frustrated by way WordPress blog host keeps “improving” their format. We may be getting a divorce soon. I know a lot of people are working on Substack now. I want one that’s easy to format and add pictures to. In the process of doing research for a good fit, I’m using up a lot of my creative energy. But I will get it sorted. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I’ve taken a break from facebook and instagram for April. I find I spend too much time on them and want to redirect that obsession to this blog, and to committed readers like you who have subscribed to and support my blog.

My goal is to start doing a post at least twice a month, then start posting weekly, even if it’s only my photography or works in progress, things I’d normally just post on facebook. I want to write more stories and turn all the bright shining ideas in my head into not so perfect reality. We’ll see what happens.

I think one thing I’ve learned (actually I’ve learned it many times in my life), is that I work best if I have a daily schedule. I got an artistic block and needed a break. I felt like the well was empty. So much is going on in the world, so much discord and hostility. And the very nature of reality, or what we perceive as reality, is changing because of AI. I felt I needed to pull back from everything, to make sure I participated in the natural world, communicated face to face with real people (who after all are often quite lovely.) Social media cuts down a lot on the isolation that being disabled brings, but so much of it now is trashy and tricky, I think isolation would be preferable at this point.

So this is the month to plunge back in, not so much refreshed, as desperate for my creativity to be released. To not let the bastards grind me down.

So I hope you’re having a delightful spring.

I look forward to seeing what blossoms here.

And here’s a little bit from my visual journal:

Iris in vase, photograph

Ahhh, Spring!

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

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The Garden Past and Present

Posted in Art, art and healing, disability, gardeningTagged , , , 11 Comments

Last summer, my elephant ear garden looked like this:

This year, it looks like this:

We had an abnormally cold winter and it killed off many of the bulbs. Elephant Ears make new bulbs every summer, often along the bottom of the old bulbs. I think these are all newly made bulbs that grew from underneath their frozen parents.

I love my elephant ears when they get dramatically big. I like seeing the slender stalks of the first small leaves divide into larger and larger leaves until they are nearly as big as me. I get cocky about them. I see other people’s plants and think, mine are bigger. It’s a bit of delusion that I have anything to do with how big they get. I do my part, of course: making sure they’re watered and have enough room to grow by weeding and tending the ground around them.

Or I used to. Now, I get other people to help me with it. Now that I’m a full time wheelchair user, I can’t get to the weeds, I can’t divide the bulbs, I can’t do all the little fussy things an urban gardener does to get credit for beautiful plants. I appreciate those who’ve helped me weed and keep some order in the small patch by my porch. I’m not totally happy about having to give up the responsibilities I enjoyed, but I’m happy that the garden grows.

I’ve also had struggles cultivating creativity over the past few years. I don’t get as many paintings done. I don’t have the energy to organize shows or to participate in groups. I don’t write as much. I don’t even go to art shows as much – transportation and fatigue issues. Like so many of us, I was changed by the arrival of COVID in our lives. Also the continuing fragmentation of our country and a seeming inability for us to build working bridges to help each other out. In my personal life, I’ve aged enough to have to deal with death more often (also a COVID factor), and my own disability takes its share of my energy. I’ve often felt as if my well was empty and I couldn’t tap into a new source of flow.

But watching these scrappy plants emerge and grow after a hostile winter, has inspired me. Slowly I am writing more, drawing again, painting again. Since I have no deadlines, I can set my own pace. I don’t have to create things at the same rate. And as I look back over all that I’ve done in previous years, I realize that I’m a productive person, even if I never actually create anything tangible ever again.

There is a form of art called “social practice.” It “focuses on engagement through human interaction and social discourse.” If I’m feeling small and insecure, I can always say I do social practice art (though no one will know what I’m talking about). To me, in its simplest form, social practice art is a way of living creatively, sharing ideas with others, contributing to a better, more peaceful and beautiful world. The goal is not necessarily a finished object or project. Living is an art. The creative ways we deal with life’s challenges are an art form.

I may just be trying to give a label to my fallow periods to feel better about them. These periods are a part of the process. Are they an art in themselves? It’s not like I’ve stopped thinking about creativity, or living creatively for even one day while I’ve navigated these past few years. I’ve been helped a lot by others, and had lots of conversations with them about the world at large, and the small world that I occupy.

And now this little garden is growing back. The plants on my porch that I can tend to are thriving. Whenever someone walks by – and looks up from their phone – they see growth and blooms. I don’t actually create it, but I facilitate it.

I once led an art workshop and one of the young participants asked if you could make a good living as an artist. I said it’s difficult. But you can make a good life.

If we survive a brutal winter and grow a little slower afterwards, there’s a lot of beauty in that. Noticing gardens is being creative. Carrying sorrow, but living with delight, that’s a good life.

Joy At the Memphis Brook Museum – living a good life

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypalCards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.