Thoughts on Creativity: Finding the Surface
I expected to get quick clarity after chemo ended and was getting progressively more frustrated. I started a daily art journal, contour drawings and fashion sketches to calm my frustration. The insight to do those daily practices came from a meditation and I approached all those pieces with the thought… I don’t know where this is headed but I will start where I am.
Guess what? It’s working. Like, really working!
Art Journal Detail
It seems the clarity and direction have been happening gradually over the last 2 months. It is certainly not linear (just like healing), lots of curves, switchbacks and 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. But if I keep showing up to the daily processes it makes space for the clarity to come through.
It feels like coming out of a long deep sleep, or anesthesia. It takes time for the fog to clear.
Like swimming in the ocean, if you get knocked off your feet by a wave you KNOW the surface is there. You know it is not far away, but you are panicked and rushed to find it (the surface, the clarity, the creative thread) and continue to flounder as you are rolled around seeing glimpses of light from the surface, and dark from the bottom.
The Ocean Waves, watercolor 5x7
Then even when you break through to the surface there is so much water in your face and eyes that you still don’t have full clarity or balance, though you are a lot closer.
You may not feel fully recovered and clear until you are on the solid ground and wiping off with your towel.
Lemon & Lime at the Beach, watercolor sketch
I am currently somewhere in the space of just breaking through from water to air… kind of half-way in between. Occasionally I am reaching for that towel!
Where are you?