ON BEING boring
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| (what will you do with) THIS DARK HORSE 30x40, acrylic on canvas, 2025 |
After twenty years of "creating every day", all different types of employment, not to mention starting another small business, while continuing to paint, exhibit and sell my work regularly, I finally am understanding where my "peak performance" lies as an artist.
At the start of the new year in January 2024, I decided to evoke an experiment. I would dedicate the entire five months (at the minimum of 5 days a week) to art making in my studio (different than my create everyday approach). I wanted to give myself an opportunity to try to show up for studio work every day without allowing external forces to distract me. I remember I had ongoing issues with my health insurance and a car accident that could have been giant distractions (or I would have allowed them to be). I mean my health insurance was accidentally canceled (!!!!!) and it took several months for me to straighten this out! The car accident involved so much correspondence with BOTH insurance parties and then all the work required in getting estimates and it finally repaired. Not the mention the other distractions like "side gigs" I make up on the fly that offer up the illusion that I am going or getting "somewhere better".
So, rather than getting on the phone and tackling these challenges at the start of the day (something I have the luxury of doing because, after all, I DO work for myself), I set them aside. I cleared my head of these unresolved "problems" and went to work in my studio, put in a full day and THEN, put energy into resolve. This was NOT easy. I had to keep reminding myself of my experiment.
SURPRISE!?! Turns out, I created more work in these five months than I had in previous years when I gave myself the entire year. This was astonishing to me. I am still astonished. I still have a tendency to think it was just one of those magical "seasons" of art making. And I am proving, this year, that it wasn't.
This year, I had to try it again. I had to see if, indeed, it was "just a fluke" or if there was any truth to creating this intensive time for myself. And even though I tell myself it is "not as good as last year" on a whim, this is NOT true. This year I am having just as much success.
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| Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon |
A concept I grasped MANY years ago was the idea that in order to maintain/sustain a "colorful" inner creative life, one may have to accept that their external life may appear "boring". I've always been OK with this trade off and, in the case of these five month intensive times, I think most people would be shocked that all I have the energy to do is to sleep, eat, paint, walk, read/watch tv and repeat. This is not an exaggeration. Last night, we had special museum tickets. I "crashed" at 4:30 and was unable to pick myself back up to attend.
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| untitled, 36x48, acrylic on canvas, 2025 |
worth noting: you DO NOT need to live like I do (for five months out of the year) TO CREATE. I started with 30 minutes a day in the late 90s. 5, 10, 20 minutes a day is MUCH more powerful than one full day a week. Understand more about this HERE
access more of my blog talks are HERE
In case you were wondering... Why horses? Read more HERE
For other posts on my creative process, you might like:
Creative Energy Gets Spent First
or posts that reference Austin Kleon
view my NEW! 2025 work HERE
for purchase information, contact:
karimaxwell@mac.com
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