creativeblock

This morning, I woke to find an e-mail from the wife of one of my cousins – one of my favorite people. This gal is known throughout the family as warm, sunny, loving, caring, funny. We all look forward to seeing her. A devoted and generous daughter, wife, and mother, and now a beautifully graced grandmother. She manages to do all this without any grey hair or wrinkles, mind you. She remembers dates and connections and keeps the family together through her gestures and thoughts – everyone adores her, as do I, though I hardly tell her enough. We are lucky to have her and the deliciousness she is to our family.

Her note was a forward about two art-making projects: the Solstice to Equinox: Out of the Darkness into the Light and the 2019 100DayProject. You can read about both, here. This lovely gal and I had spoken about the 100Day Project last year (or was that earlier this year…?) But while very inspired to participate in the project, my motivation was nowhere to be found. This is nothing new. Inktober 2017 – I managed to draw/create for a total of three days before daily home life got in the way and I “forgot” I was supposed to be drawing every day for the month. Earlier this year, when the 100DayProject came around, I went out to my art space (aka The Shed) and drooled over my favorite mark-making supplies and tools, daydreaming about arting for a luxurious 100 days and how great it would be. I’d be transformed, feel accomplishment, be in touch with my creativity and experience a sense of deep inner peace I’ve not felt in a while. Plus, a project commitment might result in the bones of a show or a series of new work.

Instead, none of this happened…except for those three days of sketching/drawing back in Inktober 2017, and in May of this year, I did Avenue Q (which was a hoot and nourished a portion of my creative bones). That’s it. (Performing art is a different creative process than visual art, at least for me.) In June, the fresh tenacity and confidence high from the show easing, I received a promotion at work. Not a great time to make art. As much gratitude as I have for the betterment and support of my position, I started smack in the middle of the crazybusy season (which only ended about three weeks ago) and jumped into a roiling, disorganized mess left by my predecessor. The first month was no less than 70-hour weeks, if not more, and there was little-to-no training. Baptism by total engulfment. No time for art – or writing, or carrying a camera or getting involved in another show. I relish the promotion. I miss art with a clear and present ache.

Now, the weekly promise of days-off looms large; at work, in my head art intentions are strong, ideas rampant. Once home and free, motivation and follow-through are uncomfortably stalled at a big fat meh.

a big fat meh personified (not my art)

We have a sizable shed. It came with the house. It’s not heated nor insulated and the mowers are in there with yard tools, patio furniture, and the tubs of Halloween/Christmas stuff. The shed is not dedicated to art. But, when we moved here I was VERY – super, over the top, elated- enthusiastic about the space and gleefully set-up my art space in a large corner of the corrugated tin garage with thick plywood flooring. It felt good. Cleared cobwebs, played music, lit candles, began painting the door. Up went shelves, unpacked books and paints, glue, tools, ephemera, found a new work table – all the special magic stuff – arranged to my liking, inviting me to come play. It felt really nice! and right and exciting to have a creative home, again. In two years I’ve been in that space four times of any length, maybe. That’s it. This morning’s e-mail makes me want to art – daily, for three months or a season – and yet, the bubbling enthusiasm is followed by, “Why bother? You don’t have the time. Other things are more important and more practical. ” Surely this is not uncommon self-defeating innerspeak.

While I understand a creative pause maybe be a necessary aspect of learning a new job and adjusting accordingly, part of my self is regularly neglected or denied and the more I realize that, the more it bothers me.

A lot.

So, on my last day off, I decided to see if how I’ve been feeling could be fixed.

I went out to the shed.
Just to be in the space because I miss it. When I’m not there for a while then return, it’s much like seeing an old flame after years pass. Bittersweet, awkward, unsure where you stand, maybe a cool welcome. With any luck, things eventually feel comfortable, warm, safe. Looking around, refamiliarizing myself, seeing projects-in-progress it started to feel good being in there; why do I stay away from art or the space I made for myself? Mid-overthinking, I turned to find mouse droppings, albeit dried and old, on some of the shelves and work table…to add insult, my books and sketchbooks have begun to lightly mold. This made me sad…sadder as the evening went on, much to my surprise, because the bright side usually pops up and I’m fine. But not yet, even a couple days later.

Not sure why, but I know enough that resentment could be around the corner and that’s not good. When my partner arrived home from work, he immediately asked what was wrong, so I told him. This is tricky to do without making him feel he should fix or repair what’s wrong. I said that I would figure it out. He suggested making the guest room the art space (but it’s already a guest room, and the size wouldn’t work). The shed is probably original to the house, 1973 or so, and it’s in good shape for a shed. It feels impractical to insulate or heat it when its primary and original function is to house tools and machinery – which it does nicely. So, in the meantime, I will move the ‘perishable’ items – books, papers, paints and glues that will freeze (they did last winter, requiring much shaking and re-mixing in spring) – into a doored bookshelf in the den that can hide them until a solution manifests.

It’s stupid, really…what bugged me the most was how much the mouse droppings and mold made my happy sink. The next day, still feeling tarred and gooey with disappointment, an epiphany: the period of time I made the most art, experienced the most satisfying production and visually creative period of my adultness was when Wasband was ill. That was almost 20 years ago.

We were still fairly newly-wedded, DD (darling daughter) was between one and two. After days of being on-call for my family and working part-time, baby to bed, man comfortable enough to sleep, I would leave the house, drive three minutes to the basement space of a small retail boutique and lose myself in art. Eventually, I started refinishing furniture which led commissioned refinishing work. It was art therapy in every way. I sold all but one piece and took orders for work for a year. I MADE it work for me by going to that basement because I had to: I was being paid and had deadlines – and it was spiritually and mentally necessary for me to do so. It got me through his cancer and treatments and setbacks and single-parenting-while-married and fending off my mother-in-law (who, well-intentioned, at one point, blamed me for not cooking enough hot meals and that is what caused cancer in her son…). It was epic, my drive to create, to fix, to repair, to mend. To heal. Some nights I would be in that little basement space until 4 AM, and make it home in time to shower, put on the kettle for my husband then begin the baby’s day. Fueled by so much crumbling and uncontrolled around us, I was compelled to make something new.

The bottom line is that I ran away from home and hid in that basement until I had to go back. Every night for over a year. I had an affair in that basement; an affair where the partners were my pain and expressing it; the heartbreaking sadness of a spouse fighting for his life and the awful fear of the unknown.

Since I am not running away from anything I am having a hard time finding a valid reason to leave home and run to my creative home, be it internal or out in the shed or another space where I can mark-make and put things together to create something new. Now, I need permission to be apart from the house, the people in it, the coupled partnership, the bed, the space held for me so lovingly here. I don’t want to leave but staying all the time is not balanced, at least not creatively.

That said, I will endeavor to engage in either the 100DayProject or the Solstice Project.

If you’re going to do so as well, please let me know and we can run away to art for a little while, every day.

DJD

You can find further information on the 100DayProject and the Solstice Project, by clicking HERE.

OCTOBERATION

a creative in rural Virginia

On The Practice of Space and Connection