Lost your creative mojo? Painter's block, writer's block....designer's lethargy.....artist's woes.
So many words for the same block....a lack of creative mojo.
I was thinking aloud today, how "ABUNDANCE" can completely obstruct and hinder one's creative flow. Therefore......REDUCING is often the key to my creative blocks. Now don't misunderstand me....I love abundance as much as anyone else....but it can also become a HUGE stumbling block in getting my creativity to flow.
Have you ever waltzed into a modern arts and crafts store or fabric store and been completely overwhelmed by the glitz and multitude of choices? Walked into a paint store and become completely dumbfounded by the thousands of paint choices? Ditto for yarns, ditto for wallpaper.....ditto for canvases.
Does the "STARVING" artist mindset work better for you?
I fall into this latter category. I have discovered that I simply MUST pare down my artistic supplies to the utter BARE BONES in order to pump up my creative Mojo. Nothing else seems to work.
Tim Ferriss, .....yes THAT Tim Ferriss, talks often in his podcast about his fave author Neil Gaiman, who has to make himself completely and utterly BORED before his creative juices flow enough for him to start writing.I can relate to that conundrum.
You see, creativity is not always logical. Creativity has a whimsical flow. One must unravel one's own creative mysteries.
One might be tempted to assume that an abundance of paint choices, or fabric choices, or yarn choices of every texture and pattern would be helpful in creating masterpieces......but I have found the OPPOSITE to be true.
I must find the absolute lowest cost art supplies and START with those and then somehow in a very mysterious fashion, I receive the blessing to begin creating again. And let's face it....it can be MOST frustrating to WANT to CREATE and yet feel somehow UNABLE to start creating.
I must start at a very low place....it is similar to what the missionary Heidi Baker teaches in approaching her ministry from a "lower still" place of humility.
I must feel that my art or music is needed. It is hard for me to feel that need when I am surrounded by an over-abundance of other folk's wealth. I need to feel it in my bones that my art or music
is a vital piece of a world wide puzzle that the earth desperately needs me to form and fill....that the earth will never be complete unless I do my thing.
Heidi Baker, the missionary, speaks sometimes about how she feels and what happens when she comes back to North America after spending months in Mozambique or Malawi. She'll walk into a grocery store in North America and try to buy some bread and she'll stand in front of a towering bread aisle filled with a plethora of bread choices ....and finds that she can't even purchase one loaf. The abundance has stunned her into silence, incapable of moving forward....incapable of making even one choice.
So, in closing..... I just want to say again..........that if you find you feel that you have temporarily met up with a creative block, try the idea of reducing your choices to that of a more "starving" artist mentality. Take away your numerous fabric choices. Choose only one or two colors of fabric with one texture. Reduce and reduce and reduce until you feel like you have a bare bones palette to work with. And then start from there. Build a thing of beauty from something small and stark. It will feed your spirit. It will build up your confidence.
Feel the need for your art. Feel the frustration of the great painters who had to humble themselves to ask relatives to send them more money just to survive on .....so they could continue to afford to buy the paint and canvas to paint on.
Feel the grittiness of the art collective who gathered old curbside cast off furniture and used the sides of these old beat up dressers and desks as the only affordable canvas upon which to express their painted art works. They started in that low place before their collective group gained traction to afford "better" art supplies. They humbled themselves to start in that low place. They didn't allow a lack of capital to stop them from creating what they felt they simply MUST create.
Start from that low, and perhaps..... low priced place. You just might surprise yourself.
Because if you can make a thing of beauty from something that is of little initial financial cost, your creativity may just shine more clearly through as that thing of GREAT worth.
Tweet
So many words for the same block....a lack of creative mojo.
I was thinking aloud today, how "ABUNDANCE" can completely obstruct and hinder one's creative flow. Therefore......REDUCING is often the key to my creative blocks. Now don't misunderstand me....I love abundance as much as anyone else....but it can also become a HUGE stumbling block in getting my creativity to flow.
Have you ever waltzed into a modern arts and crafts store or fabric store and been completely overwhelmed by the glitz and multitude of choices? Walked into a paint store and become completely dumbfounded by the thousands of paint choices? Ditto for yarns, ditto for wallpaper.....ditto for canvases.
Does the "STARVING" artist mindset work better for you?
I fall into this latter category. I have discovered that I simply MUST pare down my artistic supplies to the utter BARE BONES in order to pump up my creative Mojo. Nothing else seems to work.
Tim Ferriss, .....yes THAT Tim Ferriss, talks often in his podcast about his fave author Neil Gaiman, who has to make himself completely and utterly BORED before his creative juices flow enough for him to start writing.I can relate to that conundrum.
You see, creativity is not always logical. Creativity has a whimsical flow. One must unravel one's own creative mysteries.
One might be tempted to assume that an abundance of paint choices, or fabric choices, or yarn choices of every texture and pattern would be helpful in creating masterpieces......but I have found the OPPOSITE to be true.
I must find the absolute lowest cost art supplies and START with those and then somehow in a very mysterious fashion, I receive the blessing to begin creating again. And let's face it....it can be MOST frustrating to WANT to CREATE and yet feel somehow UNABLE to start creating.
I must start at a very low place....it is similar to what the missionary Heidi Baker teaches in approaching her ministry from a "lower still" place of humility.
I must feel that my art or music is needed. It is hard for me to feel that need when I am surrounded by an over-abundance of other folk's wealth. I need to feel it in my bones that my art or music
is a vital piece of a world wide puzzle that the earth desperately needs me to form and fill....that the earth will never be complete unless I do my thing.
Heidi Baker, the missionary, speaks sometimes about how she feels and what happens when she comes back to North America after spending months in Mozambique or Malawi. She'll walk into a grocery store in North America and try to buy some bread and she'll stand in front of a towering bread aisle filled with a plethora of bread choices ....and finds that she can't even purchase one loaf. The abundance has stunned her into silence, incapable of moving forward....incapable of making even one choice.
So, in closing..... I just want to say again..........that if you find you feel that you have temporarily met up with a creative block, try the idea of reducing your choices to that of a more "starving" artist mentality. Take away your numerous fabric choices. Choose only one or two colors of fabric with one texture. Reduce and reduce and reduce until you feel like you have a bare bones palette to work with. And then start from there. Build a thing of beauty from something small and stark. It will feed your spirit. It will build up your confidence.
Feel the need for your art. Feel the frustration of the great painters who had to humble themselves to ask relatives to send them more money just to survive on .....so they could continue to afford to buy the paint and canvas to paint on.
Feel the grittiness of the art collective who gathered old curbside cast off furniture and used the sides of these old beat up dressers and desks as the only affordable canvas upon which to express their painted art works. They started in that low place before their collective group gained traction to afford "better" art supplies. They humbled themselves to start in that low place. They didn't allow a lack of capital to stop them from creating what they felt they simply MUST create.
Start from that low, and perhaps..... low priced place. You just might surprise yourself.
Because if you can make a thing of beauty from something that is of little initial financial cost, your creativity may just shine more clearly through as that thing of GREAT worth.
Tweet
