It has been a couple of months since I have created any pieces. Making Foundlings right now feels almost like a dream. It’s easy to get concerned that I have lost my creative muse. That somehow, I have lost my need to create new works or worse, that I have nothing “new” to say.
I have to remind myself that as an artist, I have created all of my life. From graphic design to my fine art work. From holiday cards to stained glass windows. This is just what I do. It is in my nature. There is also a “season” to creating. There are the “winter months” when my creative spirit seems to be hibernating and then there are the “spring months” when everything seems new and filled with possibilities.
It is easy to think that this process is about how many pieces I create or how well I sell but I think this misses the point. I have a need, or an ability to create. The external measurements like how successful people think my work is or how my work is received by critics is really only secondary. Indeed, even if all I did was work in the isolation of my basement workshop, never doing shows, never selling a piece, never talking to other artists, I would still need to create.
My experiences and my journeys, like going to Burning Man, for example, only gave me a direction to my creativity. Perhaps giving me a more focused insight into the contrasts of life and what my voice is. For this and other journeys I am grateful but I need to remember that being an artist is not measured by a number, or a review. I am not even sure that the measure of an artistic endeavour is based on how satisfied I am by something I have created. It is simply that I create. Sometimes all day, sometimes not in a while,… sometimes not in a long while.
Creating is not like breathing to me. It isn’t essential to my life in a literal way. It is, however, something that grounds me. Something that keeps me aware.
I do miss creating but it will return and I assume with new energy.
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