Regular readers may have noted that I have pretty much been missing in action for most of the last couple of months. I had hit the dreaded creative burnout. I did not have an idea. I did not have any motivation. I did not have any time. In short, what I needed to do was take a break. This is the way creativity works. You may work for weeks, months or years and all of a sudden your motivation to create vanishes. When that happens it seems as if you have fallen into a deep pit and you cannot get out. It feels as if you Muse or Daimon has completely deserted you. (Daimon is ancient Greek for guiding spirit. Spelled Daemon in Latin.)
For a while, I tried to power through thew burnout, working on a project that I had started with the best of intentions. The project dragged on for the better part of the year. I finally forced myself to work on it until I came to a reasonable stopping point. When I hit that point, I walked out of the studio and did not go back in for quite some time. Everything piled up in there as more and more items were placed in the room because I did not have time to put them away. The worse the studio looked, the more I avoided it.
In the last couple of weeks, I managed to clean up the studio enough that I had an open space. Eventually, an empty (more or less empty anyway) work surface appeared. In search of something to do to motivate myself to get started, I pulled out a pattern and started envisioning what I might do with it. At that point, we entered into a kitchen renovation. The pattern sat there, I did not have much time to even think about it. I have not touched it since. Although I did manage to buy matching thread for the project when I made a Walmart run after the New Year.
Finally, last night, the first inkling of an idea started to emerge. It is the first creative thought of any kind I have had in months. Thoughts started running through my head as to how I would make this part or that part and what type of materials I would use. Now I am looking forward to getting into the studio.
My thoughts also turned to another project that has been languishing in the studio. It was started, but I lacked any enthusiasm to work on it further. I am ready to get working on that as well. The problem with that project is that I need forty pairs of denim jeans to complete the item. I don't have that many yet, but I have decided to start with what I have and trust that some jeans will come my way as I go along. I have tried to avoid purchasing the jeans at a thrift store. Even at a few dollars a pair, that is going to run into quite a bit of money. I am not sure that I have enough interest in the project to put that type of money into it. I have decided to start with the jeans I have collected so far and go from there. Either I will love the project and decide to purchase the jeans, or I might be able to collect more old jeans from friends. Or, I suppose, I could decide that the project was a complete waste of time and give up on it if necessary. The last thing I want to do right now is get bogged down in another uninspiring project. At least it feels good to be starting on something.
Generally, at the first of the year I make a list of creative goals for the year. I am not going to do that right now. Last year I fell woefully short of my goal and that added to the stress of being in a creative burnout. For now, I am just going to start on a project and just let myself enjoy the process without pressure. I feel that at this point, I have to treat recovery from a creative burnout almost as if I were recovering from a physical injury. I just need to make slow steady progress towards being creative again. That may not make sense to someone who has never hit a creative burnout, but if you have, you will know what I mean. Just letting myself work at my own pace is going to help me look forward to getting back into the studio regularly. From there, the process will take over and I will be back to having more ideas flowing.
So, I will be blogging on my progress on a couple of projects in short order. Check back next Sunday to see what progress I have made. I will also be blogging about another project that has carried over from last year to this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment