Recovering a Sense of Strength
I hope this post finds you well! Here in Toronto, the first week of October has been marked by the last vestiges of summer: despite the changing leaves and cool nights, the days have been sunny and hot. I’m currently writing this from my living room couch; a scented candle and electrolyte drink on the ottoman beside me. I’m trying to wind down (and not fall asleep) following a 15km run this morning.
This week, The Artist’s Way focused on recovering a sense of strength. A lot of the lessons in the text were geared towards professional artists or art students. Julia Cameron talked about how to survive criticism (in good or bad faith) from mentors, academics and audiences more generally. Because I have always considered myself a hobbyist artist and have rarely put my art out into the world for public consumption and critique, a lot of the chapter did not resonate with me.
There were, however, a few parts of the text that I found interesting. In one section, Cameron pointed out that many people tend to tell themselves that they’re either “too old” or “too young” to make art. On the one hand, we might tell ourselves some variation of: “It’s too late for me to learn how to direct! If I go to film school now, I’ll be forty by the time I graduate!”. On the other hand, we might also say, “I’m too young to learn how to paint! I have to focus on my career- I can take art classes when I retire.” Cameron dismissed these thoughts as excuses we tell ourselves which keep us creatively blocked. As someone who is particularly susceptible to this way of thinking, I’ll try to keep an eye out for it in the future.
Cameron also discussed pursuing our creative dreams one step at a time. She calls this “filling the form”, or, “taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one”. An aspiring writer, for example, may dream of publishing a novel. But before she worries about marketing a finished manuscript to an agent, she needs to focus on writing her first draft- one word at a time. This way of thinking prevents us from being daunted by big dreams and focuses our attention instead on smaller, more achievable goals. One of the exercises for this week involved making a concrete plan to achieve our creative goals: thinking about what we can do to work toward them in the next year, in the next month, in the next week, and today.
Artistic Endeavours
I completed my morning pages and tasks for the week, but don’t really have any notable insights or comments to share about them. This week, I focused less on The Artist’s Way program itself, and more on actually creating art. I baked again (though, two recipes I’ve already made before), and painted a handful of watercolour paintings for INKtober.
INKtober is a month-long art challenge which takes place every October. The challenge invites artists to create and post (primarily on Instagram) art pieces every single day for the entire month. I’ve participated in INKtober a few times in the past- always using the “Peachtober” prompt list created by Sha’an d’Anthes of FurryLittle Peach (as opposed to the official INKtober prompt list). This year, given how busy I’ve been with half-marathon training and The Artist’s Way, I don’t realistically think I’ll be able to paint a picture a day for the entire month. This said, I’d like to get at least a few paintings done. I think it will be a great way to continue experimenting with watercolours and sharing my process online.
For my artist date this week, I spent a quiet afternoon at Mill Pond Park. I brought my journal and some pencil crayons, and ended up spending time walking, drawing and writing. Going outside and spending time in nature seems to be a recurring theme in my artist dates. Perhaps it makes sense that nature features so heavily in my drawings and photographs.
With love- until next week,
Laura Kate
Laura Katherine 