A Funeral for Potential
My creative integrity requires resting in peace
One of the aspects of creativity I love most is the nonlinear process: it feels like synchronicity, intuition, magic, divination, and honoring (among others) depending on the day and project or season of life. It ceases to amaze, grow, and delight me.
But I struggle with trusting it too. Every creative process (of my own work) inevitably involves an uncomfortable phase of feeling scattered, disparate, messy, incoherent, uncertain, and even futile. It ensures I question my sanity and ability.
Welcome to the funeral of my creative potential
Complementing my belief that we need more celebrations of life while weāre living, I simultaneously believe weāre lacking enough funerals and eulogies. Remembering and releasing from the earthly plane does not only need to belong to people or pets. Donāt the extensions and expressions of ourselves also deserve ceremony and acknowledgment? Maybe not every one but we all have pieces or projects that are so personally significant to us.
Sitting at my desk in my studio surrounded by raw materials, in-progress projects, and finished pieces hanging around me, I sat with my head in my hands for a whole 10 minutes. Prior to this posture of resignation, I had spent 30 min. doing a small paint study (aka prototype for a larger work) and it did not turn out the way I wanted it to. Like, at all. On top of several months of personal events that rendered my creativity sparse, I could feel momentum of spiraling near.
Thereās a type of overwhelm that comes from a lack in mental capacity; itās like my mindās space has been filled with running lists of concepts and inspirations for new artworks to the brim, but Iām stuck without enough space for the execution and output. The Creative Constipation is here and the pressure is distracting.
I start thinking about my creative integrity. I start questioning if the aspect of potential is fueling or starving me.
Creativity is a life force that deserves requires a respect and protection from false urgency and inauthentic obligation. in the name of the artistās way of creating something from nothing.
This funeral is to lay to rest the many potentially great ideas Iām choosing to let go.
Maybe theyāll come back, maybe they wonāt!
I meant it when I said Iād rather be free than right.
Proceeding with caution, āHow presumptuous am I being right now?ā Iāve been humbled enough. Through some of my most resistant phases, Iāve ended up with significant beloved works. The breakthroughs felt a lot like breakdowns. Itās easier to see far ahead a straight road than one that bends around the terrain. Experience teaches me that the friction of uncertainty and weights of doubt should not be taken too seriouslyā¦ most of the time.
I discern I donāt want to create from a place of unnatural forcing nor do I want to fall into the trap of reverse-engineering my own creativity, like I was trained so well to do in commercial creative and design work. I do know I want to create from my own genuine inspiration, answering my unique callings. My Work deserves to be created in deliberation, not in the noise of scarcity.
So this is a new exercise. I extract the elements formed in my creative constipation outside of me. How specificā how honestā can I be? If I give the formless form, I could then gingerly wrap my hands around them, hold them with gratitude, and bravely set them free. There would be peace for each of us.
Goodbye,
ā¢ series of drawings dedicated to each zodiac of Chinese astrology. The intention would honor lineage, culture, and systems except Iām not actually excited about drawing animals, like at all. A creative form of a lesson Iām learning again and again? āJust because I can doesnāt mean I must.ā
ā¢ continuing to draw in my former floral style using fine line strokes: it used to feel natural, meditative, and specialā¦ just not anymore, not right now. This feels indicative of my recent deepening into self, life, and artwork.
ā¢ character designing as a way to personify some of the sentiments or experiencing Iāve been contemplating. Iām always so delighted when I see illustrators who create characters/identifies/aliases of unique beings; delight is not the same as being drawn-to though (no pun intended). It is OK for me to feel creative FOMOā¦ I can stay open without staying stuck-on.
ā¢ daydream about being an nonrepresentational painter: I appreciate the genre/style and highly respect artists who think/feel/move like thatā¦ but it hasnāt been me for a reason. The paint study I mentioned? It wasnāt the gift I wanted, but a gift I needed to receive. The feedback was instant. Neither the process or end point resonate with me after all.
ā¢ fantasy of ease/clarity/simplicity being a single-medium artist. Outside looking in is a flat scene, isnāt it? If it feels more restrictive than focusing to create in 1 medium, I can compassionately rest my striving to be so. I can take this remaining capacity to be less judgmental about my multidisciplinary practice and processes. How do I continue to pursue my curiosity and preferences? By pivoting away from what isnāt.
Are you surprised to read these have been weighing on me?
Do they seem trite or misaligned for me?
Are they inherently weak or boring concepts?
These are actually rhetorical, but Iām a little bit curious what some of you might think.
May this funeral ignite something, somewhere and some time. May one of these ideas finds life with and through the right artist, the right vessel. May you host an overdue funeral of your own for the love of capacity and creativity.
With an exhale beyond the physical sigh, I feel a little bit lighter here and more spacious to be show up for My Work. I didnāt go back back into the studio today and thereās no guarantee Iāll wake up tomorrow feeling different, but the shift toward honesty is happening in real time and thereās a liberation I can feel inside of me too. The creative process wonāt suddenly become easier after this funeralā of manyā but it will be more whole. There is now more space and time for my capacity.
Have other creatives experienced something similar or tried the same? How do you create/maintain capacity for your integral work?