Inspiration Point

on the dry well and finding the juice again

It’s the New Moon today. A good time for new beginnings, new energy, new seeds of ideas being sown. Life is so full of changes and surprises, isn’t it? I know, I'm like a broken record on this one. But who can deny it? And why would I ever stop being astounded by it? The day I stop being in awe of how it all happens, I may as well be dead. The biggest change for me right now is that my part-time job I began last month has ended, and new one, far more exciting, fulfilling (and completely serendipitous) has just begin. But that’s not what I want to write about today.

Over the past few weeks I’ve made a lot of bad paintings. I have thrown them away, ripped them out of sketchbooks, allowed myself to feel like I might never paint again, and spent a lot of time staring into space and wasting perfectly good (and expensive) sheets of paper.  Nothing that was in my head, nothing that was formed by my inner vision, was turning out right when my hand met the paper with my pencils, pens and brushes.

This happens sometimes with anything we do that uses our imagination , our heart, our creativity, with anything that requires us to make something out of nothing or to solve problems. Some writers call it writer's block—and I have never really believed in it. Instead, I think of these dry and frustrating spells as growing pains, because whenever I have experienced them, if I keep on showing up and trying eventually I cross over the chasm (or really climb up the steep cliff to get out of the chasm) with some kind of breakthrough and new way of seeing or doing whatever it is I was struggling with. Growing pains. Does that make sense to anyone but me?

So for the past couple of weeks (months? years?) I’ve been having growing pains. A dry spell.  A time of experimentation and failure and many mishaps. A time of less and less time for my own personal work. And then by chance a friend sent me a little post by an artist she liked on Instagram and it reminded me of so many things I've done in the past, not in style or subject or even medium, but in simplicity and palette, and my heart soared to that place that can only be known as the inspiration point. I must have looked at the post my friend sent to me a dozen times, mesmerised. I slept on it, woke up the next day, turned to a fresh page in my sketchbook, ground up some ink and began. All I can say is that it felt like magic fairy art dust being sprinkled down on my, my hands, my paper. Sometimes we need a little magic.

Sometimes we need to mix it up a bit and try a new approach. Sometimes we need to be surprised. Sometimes we need to let go of our desire for control and let the paint flow where it wants to flow. What a surprising lesson for me and what wonderful results. I feel excited to spend more time with my inks, pencils, pens and paints this week. I have a little lull between old job and new job and I am going to spend it all in my sketchbook. This morning I took about two minutes and created the video above, in honour of this New Moon. And yes, I capitalise New Moon.

So today I am wondering about you. I'm wondering what you do when the well feels dry. When you feel like you just don’t have enough time to really dig in to something juicy and slow. I’m working on a longer piece to publish later this week, but for now I’d love to hear from you. And thanks for being here. Always.