Does your artistic life run in one, clear channel? Or do you find yourself digging many tunnels – vole-like! – to reach the same cozy home? I operate on the vole-model, myself, so that my creativity radiates rather than streams. Neither is better, of course, but it’s useful to know how you are put together so that you can foster yourself in the way most natural to you. Some friends of mine play one instrument, write in one form, or sing one kind of song. Others turn from art to art, dancing over to sonnets when sestinas run dry, or from jazz to Broadway show tunes as the urge strikes.
These days I am running down many paths and tunnels, and it makes me feel wonderfully alive! I’ve been:
- improvising brief songs with words at the piano – a single verse and chorus. Sometimes I keep ‘em and sometimes I don’t. It’s the doing that matters.
- drawing tiny 15-minute intricate artworks called Zentangles; the idea behind this is that we need time every day to relax our mind, be creative and achieve flow. I couldn’t agree more! Check out Zentangle for examples, kits, and more information about this exciting, instant, and democratic art-form.
- playing my big glorious harp
- writing poems of all kinds, including haiku, fibs (based on the fibbonaci sequence), 10-minute poems on topics, rhymed verse, and free verse. Words and I are on a honeymoon at present!
- re-reading my novel for young readers and preparing to write the next chapters
- improvising music with friends. What fun this is! And how much it enlarges us all, opens us up, teaches us new turns and places to go.
Over years of working and playing this way, I’ve decided to trust these rhythms and changes. Just as I’ve come to believe that doing some little thing for my health trumps thinking about doing some big, impressive thing, now I see that small, regular visits with my creative self keep the way clear. It doesn’t matter if I’m messing around with watercolors for a few minutes after dinner or working on my book. Making a delicious soup or some of Kathleen’s granola-for-the-soul counts, too. What matters is going to that place in which focus and pleasure entwine.
What happens when we keep the way clear? In my own life, I feel a lovely sense of freshness, a subtle excitement or electricity even when I’m not making art. I can also attest that keeping the way clear makes it more likely that I’ll receive one of those blissful cosmic “gifts” that feel more like “downloading” a poem, song, or idea than consciously creating it. In that sense, keeping the way clear means that when something deeper or more surprising springs onto the scene, you are ready to encounter it. And finally, making art a daily practice means that you build up a repertoire, a body of work. I look at my 2008 file of poems and glow as the titles stack up! Are they all brilliant, prize-winning poems? No, they are not. But they’re there! And all the signs suggest that through the year, many titles will join them.
Are you keeping the way clear? If yes, what are your tools for doing so? If not, can you start with something small, fun, and focused today?
