Overcoming Creative Inertia

The internet is a wonderful thing - it provides immediate access to what artists and artisans around the world are thinking, doing, and writing about. For me, there seems such a high level of familiarity, similar experiences, similar artistic directions, and opinions that I begin to feel part of a larger shared human experience. 

Which sometimes isn't such a wonderful thing.

Because as soon as I settle in to that comfortable seat in the midst of this shared human experience, inertia sets in.

I can feel my creative juices draining away. 

My sense of having an individual unique voice drains away.

It's a feeling akin to crossing a mudflat, where the ground slowly gives way and you sink deeper and find it so much harder to move forward until suddenly you realize - you're stuck. 

This year I've put in almost as much energy resisting Inertia as I have in improving my painting technique.  I've tried many approaches, but here are a few that have worked well.

• I stopped painting small format and went big.  Really big.
• I started to study an art discipline completely different from painting - not with the intention of switching over but just to get my brain working with new thought patterns.
• I read books about subjects unrelated to art - right now I'm reading books about the Grail Legend and Alchemy.  
• I stopped reading Art Marketing books.

I realized sometime back that I had unconsciously slowed my art production because of the recession - I reduced the sizes of my paintings, I looked at the finished work that was slowly filling up my storage area, and I found it more difficult than ever to get truly excited about a new painting.  Inertia.  They say it's the natural state of the natural world.  Sort of like those brush hairs stuck in the dry paint. 

But artists have a solution to that. 

Don't they?

 

Comments

[sue smith]

thanks everyone, for keeping me going through this past year...all the best to everyone in 2010!

[whollyjeanne]

after being at a writer's retreat with kathleen norris and reading her book, i've recently decided i have acedia. chronic acedia. good news is that with determination and discipline, it's curable.

[Tamara]

Hey Sue,
Your connection between the recession and reduction in size of your artwork is very interesting. It's weird how our minds seem to 'shrink' when we are overwhelmed by external challenges. May your creativity relax in the jacuzzi of possibilities! Ha!
Tamara

[Casey Klahn]

Well done, Sue!

My own inertia after the summer is slowing coming to an end. Art is reappearing in my studio, 1 work at a time.

Funny how the recession has changed each of us in many ways. I no longer avoid "exposure" types of events. Now exposure or profile is coin for me. Very liberating!

[Laurie]

Great article Sue. I recently implemented my own solutions but will try some of yours. I cut back on Internet use to only what is needed and limited my time to 1 hr/day and I have stopped watching the news. Thanks for your helpful advise. Laurie