Becoming a Slightly Mad Artist
Choosing a Creative Rhythm Month by Month
Creative Possibilities/Issue #11
Creative Possibilities is a section of Good and Beautiful Things, dedicated to sharing parts of my creative journey in order to spur on your own.
As I shared last week, my entry into the new year didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped. Yet I can’t help but feel thankful that what seemed frustrating at the time became an invitation to approach the year with a different perspective. Over the past few weeks I’ve shifted my focus away from the year as a whole and instead I’m mapping out rhythms and themes month by month.
This change has given me a fresh attitude toward the ideas that are constantly launching in my head. When a new habit or an idea for art comes to mind I can try it out for a month rather than commit to it for an entire year.
To help support this new way of thinking I bought a bulletin board where I could put reminders of monthly habits and creative themes in plain view.
Let me share with you how this monthly approach has affected my writing and art these first few weeks of January.
A major influence in kicking off my creativity this year has been the year long art class I’m taking called Creativity Lab with Carla Sonheim. First of all, I love the name of this year’s class (the name changes each year). The word “lab” conjures the image of a science laboratory which makes me think of experiments. It’s kind of fun picturing myself as a slightly mad artist conducting experiments with paint and paper and words.
Repetition as a Practice
One of our assignments this month has been to “repeat” ourselves. The goal is to take something you’ve drawn or painted and revisit the form with different materials rather than move quickly on to something completely new.
This idea resonated with me because I’ve been interested in sticking with something I make for a longer period of time in order to experiment further. So I put “repeat” on my January board.
Last week I shared these kingfishers that I painted in response to Mary Oliver’s poem, The Kingfisher.
Jumping on the theme of repetition, I created another kingfisher with alcohol inks and Posca markers. The alcohol inks don’t allow for much control so the silhouette of the bird changed and the colors evolved as well.
Do I like it more than the first birds that I made? Not necessarily, but I don’t think that’s the point. The point is that I’m enjoying the chance to try new variations. I think I have a few more kingfishers up my sleeve before January is over.
Repetition Continued
Inspired by a quote from The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, I decided to illustrate the idea that we are all “antennae for creative thought”.
The original drawing started with the face and the antennae but I didn’t like what was happening around it so I cut it out and decided to incorporate it into a collage. I worked on it during a zoom work session for my art class and there was something about making it with speed and momentum that prevented me from overthinking the placement of each element.
After making the first one I thought I might enjoy continuing to play with collage this month so I added it to my board. I can’t tell you how happy and light it made me feel to have the one month option versus dubbing the next twelve months the “year of collage”.
Then I wondered—what if I take repetition further by creating another collage centered around a quote? I decided to continue with some of the same elements: a quote typed on yellow paper, old drawings, an old photograph and a bird.
It was a great idea but when I tried it I got bogged down every time I worked on the new collage. I put too much pressure on myself to make the idea work rather than going at it as a mad artist experiment instead. Eventually I had to remind myself of this quote shared by someone in my art class.
“In any creative endeavor you have to give yourself permission to create junk. There is no way around it.”
-James Clear
It’s not that I thought any of the work I was doing was truly bad but I also knew I was tense and getting too invested in the success of the final product. Opening myself up to the possibility of making junk was a way to release the pressure valve in the moment.
Eventually, I ended up adhering everything temporarily with sticky tac and setting it aside. I’m going to let it steep and revisit it later, perhaps move onto another collage or kingfisher instead (or a kingfisher collage?!). Maybe I need to go back to a “speed” collage like the way I made the first one: more fast gluing, less overthinking.
Repetition Related to Writing
Someone in my class shared a Pantoum poem that she’d written. The form was new to me but it happens to include repetition throughout the poem. You take the 2nd and 4th line in the first stanza and then in the next stanza those lines become the 1st and 3rd line. And so on, and so on.
A walk with my husband in the snow this week provided just the right opportunity to play with the Pantoum form. I don’t know that I’d call this experiment successful but I can tell you it was fun.
First Snow, Now and Then
My favorite part was the silence
as we walked hand in hand
through the first snow of 2024,
our very own fairy tale forest.
As we walked hand in hand
I remembered another first snow
a similar fairy tale forest,
twenty-five years ago.
On the day of that first snow—
the phone rang and rang
twenty-five years ago—
but we ignored every call,
though it rang and rang—
content in our own little world,
we ignored every call until-
“Look, guys! It’s snowing!”
Outside we found a new world,
white magic cloaked everything,
“It’s snowing! Look, just look!”-
snow as fresh and new as we were.
White magic cloaked everything
twenty-five years later
snow so much newer than both of us,
together we walked hand in hand,
a quarter of a century later,
through the first snow of 2024.
We walked hand in hand together-
my favorite part was the silence.1
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Will I continue the themes of repetition and collage in February? Maybe. Or maybe new themes will take their place. All I know is that making choices month by month, instead of trying to determine them all at the beginning of the year, has felt like an act of grace.
Know someone who would enjoy creative inspiration? Pass it on!
Continue the Creative Journey
Check out this post about creating a vision board by fellow artist, Susan Jimenez. This feels adaptable to a month to month perspective as well, something I could even do in my sketchbook at the beginning of each month.
I also recommend this post by a new artist I’ve discovered, Helen C. Stark. In this post, she shares how she creates a visual journal of her week. Although I love the idea of having a full year of these two-page spreads it also overwhelms me. What if I tried it for a month?
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
After looking at several examples, I saw several variations to the form. Those included repeating the lines from the first stanza in the last stanza and varying the repeated lines a bit. I incorporated both of those. Basically, if you really want to understand this form I suggest you look it up instead of using my attempt as your pattern.
I am ALWAYS delighted to get opportunity to peer into your Creativity Lab. Thank you for taking us there this week!!
I love the idea of taking the pressure off by not tying ourselves to one thing for the entire year. Sometimes we need the freedom to float.