Recovering a Sense of Possibility
Happy Sunday!
As I’m sure you know by now if you’ve been keeping up with my posts, I’m currently participating in Julia Cameron’s 12-week creative recovery program, The Artist’s Way. Each week, the program has participants read a chapter in an accompanying text, complete some tasks, write daily “morning pages” and go on an artist date.
The theme for this week was recovering a sense of possibility. In the text, Julia Cameron talked a lot about artificial limits and ceilings that we impose on ourselves. In reality, regardless of what we might think, our creative possibilities are infinite.
Cameron also discussed the importance of creative solitude: time alone for artists to create and recharge. Despite the importance of this time, many artists get stuck in what Cameron calls the “virtue trap” where they give away all the time they would otherwise spend alone to others. Cameron argued that giving away our time for solitude is detrimental to our creative selves and ultimately self-destructive. “Afraid to appear selfish, we lose [ourselves]”.
From personal experience, I know that Cameron is right about this. For many years, I prioritized school, my career and productivity more generally over artistic pursuits. For years, I stopped creating altogether, and I paid the price. As a result of failing to take any time for creative living, I found myself unfulfilled and in a state of paralysis when I tried to start creating again.
Tasks
Most of the tasks for this week involved collecting images for an “visual image file”:
“List five desires. For the next week, be alert for images of these desires. When you spot them, clip them, buy them, photograph them, draw them, collect them somehow. With these images, begin a file of dreams that speak to you. Add to it continually for the duration of the course.”
I took this to mean making a moodboard. To get started, I temporarily reactivated my Pinterest account, found some photos that aligned with my desires and fantasies, printed them out, and began assembling them into a collage. Throughout the rest of this program, I’ll do my best to add other inspiring images I encounter.
Morning Pages
I felt very annoyed and resentful with the morning pages this week, and, in fact, had my first “slip-up” with them. I did not complete the morning pages on Thursday. While I definitely understand the value of the exercise (morning pages force me to create something every single day, even when I don’t want to, and without worrying about the quality of what I’m creating; they also allow me to work through my thoughts and feelings), having to spend half an hour writing them every morning feels tedious. I think I would appreciate them more if I didn’t already regularly journal or have a regular morning routine.
Artist Date
On Friday night, I took myself and my Nikon D3100 to the Toronto Beaches to watch the sunset. The beach is, famously, my favourite place in Toronto (I ended up there again on Saturday morning for a run). I walked along the coast collecting seaglass, watched the sky turn from blue to pastel pink and purple, and listened to the waves crashing against the shoreline. This was a very sensory experience- I did my best to take notice of all the sensations I was experiencing: the sights, the sounds, the smells. I also, of course, took the opportunity to photograph the scene.
Other Artistic Endeavours
This week, I found myself drawn to the kitchen again. I made 2 new recipes- cornbread muffins and energy bites. It’s completely unexpected to me that I’m gravitating toward cooking and baking- at one point in my life, I was the type of person that would get takeout 2-3 times per day. I credit The Artist’s Way (and my partner, a takeout hater) with my recent enthusiasm for cooking. Even though it isn’t exactly a “fine” art, I still consider cooking and baking to be an art, or at least, art-adjacent.
I also decided to take the leap and create my own website on WordPress to host this blog moving forward instead of Substack. I’m currently in the process of transferring my content between platforms. I’ve been using Substack for over a month, and while the experience has been good, I’m still not completely happy with the platform. I’m still finding it confusing and difficult to use, and I wish it had more customization options. While I still plan to use Substack in some way moving forward, I thought that making my own website was my next logical step.
I’ll definitely keep you posted when the website goes live.
Anyway- until next week,
Laura Kate
Laura Katherine 