A Drop in the Bucket: Making a Collage

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way that I prioritize my creative projects. Often I catch myself putting my ideas into arbitrary categories. Writing fiction trumps blogging. Working on the dessert cookbook I want to make trumps painting in my watercolor notebook. I want to do all of these things equally, and yet I still catch myself assigning value to things, often based on what I think other people  expect. I've told people I want to write fiction, so doing anything else feels somehow less important. That's why, today, I decided to make something that didn't have any perceived importance attached to it.

I've been daydreaming about working with paper recently. I love the idea that you can create a picture out of shapes alone, so I decided to try my hand at making a collage. The inspiration for the subject matter came from two of my favorite things: soft, warm light that stretches across a room at sunset, and succulents.

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Of course, creating the illusion of light falling on anything with paper alone was an ambitious task for a novice collage-er like me. It took a little while to separate out what papers I should use for different areas (especially that parts that fell into the light), and building a semi-realistic looking cactus out of shapes was no easy task either. Once I had the most important shapes cut out I had to figure out what order to glue them down in. It should have been simple, but one wrong move and I had to peel up the shape and move it without ripping the layers underneath it.

I have so many big, long term ideas in the works, that I think I'd forgotten you could still make something in a single day. By all accounts, this little project should have been last on my list of priorities. It has nothing to do with anything else I'm working on. I don't know what I'm going to do with the finished product. And yet, I got to reconnect with what it feels like to make for the sake of making. One of my favorite quotes about the creative process comes from the writer Brenda Ueland, and while it's specifically about writing, I think it applies to all creative acts: "I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten: happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another." This is how I felt while I was gluing paper today. And if I can feel that way while gluing paper, then maybe I can feel that way while writing a novel and making a cookbook and juggling all the things I want to do.  We all have to pick and choose how we spend our time, so there should be joy in the decision making, and joy in the doing.

** A Drop in the Bucket is a series of posts where I complete one item on my creative bucket list, and share the results **

On Creative Guilt

I have a lot of creative guilt. It sounds like this:

-Why haven't you written anything today?
-When was the last time you made something?
-How long has it been since your last blog post?
-You're adding another project to your list? What about all the unfinished ones?

And so on. Creative guilt doesn't just show up when I haven't made anything in a while. It rears its ugly head at the precise moment when I need it to shut up: when I'm about to start. That can be embarking on a new project or just trying to fit in thirty minutes of work. It's the voice in my head that says, "You haven't been able to keep this up in the past, so what makes this time any different?"

It's true that my track record for follow-through is pretty lousy. Even this summer, when I have the gift of free time, I haven't been able to consistently keep up a creative practice. And while, yes, I could really benefit from less daydreaming and more doing, the voice that makes me feel bad about myself and discourages me from getting back in the game is textbook creative guilt.

That first hint of failure - the first day you didn't write after a multi-day streak, the day your enthusiasm ran out, the day someone asked you a question you couldn't answer and it threw the whole project into question - is most often when creative guilt pounces. It's one thing to feel restless, to want to make something after a hiatus; it's another to feel like every setback is magnified because you can't seem to get your act together.

The guilt is a liar. I could agonize for days about how little I've accomplished, but would it help anything? Of course not. And what I have to remind myself, over and over again, is that past failures  have no bearing on my ability to do the work. It doesn't matter how many days it's been since I've written. What matters is that I write today. It doesn't matter how many projects I've left unfinished. What matters is that I finish this one.

My advice (that I'm still trying to follow) is this: Take a deep breath. Push the guilt monster out of your head. Begin.

**When you need a break, or an extra kick in the pants, check out the links below**
An Invocation for Beginnings
Chuck Close on Inspiration and Work Ethic (via Brainpickings)
Austin Kleon on Learning Creative Habits from his Son

The Creative Life

What does it mean to live a creative life? Google images would have you believe it looks something like this:

Dalton Trumbo (Source)

Photo by Lynn Bauer (Source)

Wether you see yourself in a bathtub with a typewriter or painting in a field full of flowers, when picturing the creative life there's always a sense of creating something out of nothing, of a life that borders on chaos but never leaves the realm of possibility. Maybe this is why we love hearing about "process" and "routine." We're trying to explain the unexplainable.

On the surface level, the life of an intellectual like Darwin looks pretty darn perfect. His routine included working through the morning, long walks in the afternoon, and reading in the evening, all in a secluded, stately home in English countryside. What this routine doesn't show is the crippling doubt and stress induced by his work, and the inner turmoil that ruled his life, from his compulsive letter writing habits ("Darwin made a point of replying to every letter he received, even those from obvious fools or cranks. If he failed to reply to a single letter, it weighed on his conscience and could even keep him up at night." Source) to the rift his scientific discoveries created between him and his wife. What I'm getting at here is that the creative life isn't all painting in fields of wild flowers.

This is not meant to discourage those looking to go into a career in the arts. It is however meant to dispel the idea we have of creative individuals as enlightened beings who have somehow transcended the plight of every day living. Even its opposite, the "tortured artist" trope, is an idealization in its own right. We are just like you. We have bad days, and we have good ones. They can be exciting and productive, but they can just as easily be mind-numbingly boring.

I really dislike the way we split ourselves into categories: left-brainded vs right-brained. Analytical vs. Creative. Conventional vs. Unconventional. As if accountants can't think creatively and artists can't be analytical. And worse, that the route we choose in life can be labeled as "lucrative" or not, that we are suddenly seen as outsiders if the path we choose doesn't point towards clear-cut success.

While writing this article I stumbled across a quote by John O'Donohue that reads:

"The call to the creative life is a call to dignity, to a life of vulnerability and adventure..."

While I appreciate the sentiment, I would argue that it's not the just the creative life that should contain these things, but life in general. Here's to living a life of vulnerability and adventure, whether you are working a 9-5 job or making things up in a cabin in the woods.

Afterthoughts:

Check out this fantastic info-graphic on the creative life. If you're lucky, I would hope your life includes lots of these things, even if you're not living the creative ideal.

I've been really interested in Darwin lately, can you tell? Read more about his daily routine here, and don't miss out on this awesome graphic novel biography.

If you haven't noticed, I link to Brain Pickings a lot. It is a compendium of knowledge I never would have discovered otherwise, and I highly recommend you go subscribe to their newsletter. Like, right now.