![]() I’m sitting on my patio watching the sun set listening to Laurence Fox and Amanda Palmer. Good times, except the bugs are coming out. At least there aren’t too many mosquitos—thanks, Cutter spray!—it’s dry so I have the water sprinkler on. A creative, happy place to be. In many of the posts I’ve been reading the authors reference Julia Cameron, especially her book The Artist's Way. I finally, after all these years, picked it up from the Library. (Yay, Library for having it!) I was reading the first section (The Basic Tools) and found this: As artists we must learn to be self-nourishing. What does she mean? Self-nourishing? What she means is I have to feed my artist. I have to take her out, have fun with her, pamper her, listen to her. But I also can’t just let her stay up watching TV and eating honey buns all night. I have to make sure she eats healthy, creative things. I have to make sure she goes to bed at night and learns what she needs to. I have to make her do her homework. She has to have a little bit of discipline along with the wild creative abandon. How do I do this?
People need nourishment to grow and thrive. We can’t focus on the outside at the expense of ourselves. If we don’t feed our inner self we won’t be any good for those around us. As artists, that means to create. To take what’s inside and put it out. How weird is that? In order to Nourish our Inner Artist, we don’t take in. We put things out: pictures, words, paintings, sculptures. Whatever our creative genius wants to share. Art may be a solo endeavor, but it’s doesn’t have to be a lonely one. Note: Amanda Palmer and Laurence Fox don’t actually play together, but if they did, it would be interesting. |
AuthorBeth writes words. They come together in poetry, short stories, and a few ongoing novels. Archives
February 2018
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Being Creative
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath