When I was thinking about what to call this newsletter I knew that “practice” would be part of it, and I also wanted to include a more qualitative aspect of the creative process that is so hard to define. I landed on “curiosity”. The open, curious state naturally generates questions, and when we find a really good question, it becomes a thread that leads us, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for years, in our creative process.
Questions, in the context of creative practice, become most potent when we are open to not knowing, and this generally runs counter to much of our conditioning. Not knowing can be uncomfortable. It certainly is for me! Many of us (maybe most of us) are more interested in a state of knowing, and questions provoke a surge of motivation to answer that question. Our nervous systems are wired to seek certainty. But do we lose something in the rush to know? In creative practice, we have an opportunity to resist knowing and rest in the questions, listening intently enough to feel the shape of what isn’t, the negative spaces, what could be, that potentiality, and seeing if something blooms there. It’s worth examining–are we more comfortable knowing or not knowing? Engaging with creative practice requires us to at least be on speaking terms with not-knowing.
And sometimes not knowing lends confidence enough to wade in and give something a try. Twenty-plus years ago I was (wonderfully, thankfully) clueless about making a life making art. I somehow still possessed the excitement and naivete of an undergrad, having bypassed an MFA to have two children instead. There I was, in my early thirties, feeling very much like I was getting a late start in making my art. That cluelessness was my entry point.
I was at the edge of something vast and wildly uncertain, and if I had known the terrain that I was I was setting out on, how uneven and unpredictable it was, I might not have begun again. It could easily have overwhelmed me; I may have been discouraged.
Not knowing saved me.
Not knowing motivated me.
And not knowing allowed me to ask questions as I began to build my practice. So many questions! Where to begin? How to claim studio time away from family? How to take up space to create and own what I do? How to develop my voice in my work? How to develop persistence and momentum in my practice? How to find creative community? How to navigate audience or handle failure, rejection, and uncertainty? How to develop a healthy relationship with showing and eventually selling my work? How to be inspired by others’ work without letting it hijack my own process and ideas? These are not one-and-done questions, they are perennial, cycling and re-inventing themselves along the way. In the course of navigating them, I’ve learned to recognize the value of not knowing. My ability to make and experience art is shaped by how I interact with questions.
I’m getting better at not knowing, and that is mostly thanks to my art practice. If I keep showing up with an open mind and curiosity, answers arrive in their own time, on their own terms. I ask questions, I hold space, I show up and do the work, and something emerges. Every time.
Three Questions
As I ease into planning for 2023 in slow-winter-motion, here are three questions I am asking myself on repeat:
What do I want to bring forward?
What do I want to create?
What do I want to let go of?
Gleanings
David Bowie: “Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you feel that your feet aren’t quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
Embodied creativity: “It turns out that how you move your body through the world — and if you’re moving it at all — has a dramatic impact on your creativity.”
Habit Fields
“Every object emits a habit field. When we sit down at the desk in our office to work, we shape its habit field into a productive one. When we sit down in a lounge chair to watch our favorite TV program, we nudge the chair’s habit field toward relaxation and consumption. The more we repeat the same activity around an object, the stronger its habit field gets. And the stronger its habit field gets, the easier it is for us to effortlessly fall into that mode of behavior the next time we’re around the object.”
(This really got me thinking about my new studio space and apartment, and how to shape my “habit fields” to direct my attention and energy.)
Mason Curry on his creative routines: “It is a process of sorts, but it often feels more like a crisis.”
That’s it for this week, lovely readers! Thank you for spending time here. If you enjoy this newsletter, share it with a friend :)
Yours in Practice,
Lisa
Ooooo, habit fields. That’s interesting….