In these first few months of the year it feels like our focus is on what’s ahead – onwards and upwards! It’s a time of optimism and high hopes, of reaching up and dreaming big. It’s a time of setting goals, setting up expectations and trusting we can do it.
These are not intrinsically bad things. I don’t have a problem with having ambition and wanting to be challenged in the work we do. What I do feel uncomfortable with is how much of this yearning and striving comes without enough considering of what’s gone before, and at a cost of over-stretching.
In the last few years, in the work I’ve done with makers and other creative people, I have become increasingly convinced that the most important work you can do is to accurately assess how sustainable your practice is, before you push yourself forwards.
Initially my definition of a ‘sustainable’ craft career was limited to how it relates to the individual, how manageable a practice is, but I have also been developing a meaning which extends beyond the self to the wider world, and the impact a craft practice has on others and the planet.
As I’ve talked to people about these ideas I realise that we don’t often think of our work in this way. We tend to focus on what we’ve done, how it’s gone (a binary success/failure measurement) and what we’d like to do next. We experience information from society at large, and our social media worlds, that growth is good and we should all be hustling and winning. But this has us chasing after intangible rewards and comparing ourselves to all sorts of illusions. It can get exhausting.
I am for makers and creative people having the option to do what they love for as long as they want. Because of this, I work with makers in the early stages of their careers who are struggling to get their work out into the world, I work with mid-career makers who want a change of direction or a bigger challenge so that their work can continue to flourish. I am not for creating impossible standards for makers so that they feel inadequate or that their own way of working isn’t enough.
Sensible planning ahead relies on an objective assessment of where you are now and how you got there. Reflecting and reviewing your practice isn’t a once-a-year event. By building points of reflection into your year, by asking the right kind of questions about how sustainable your practice is and how well you’ve been managing so far, the path ahead can be tailored to your specific needs. It can help you to respond to the events and issues in your life, which are unique to you, as well as those which are facing everyone on the planet, and which will have a significant effect on the work you do.
Next week I am running a workshop at Clayhill Arts in Somerset where I will lead you through the process of auditing your creative practice – looking at how sustainable your work is (for you) and the impact it has on other people and the planet. This will help you work out what a sustainable practice means to you, to identify the areas you’d like to work on, and the steps you can take now to develop a responsible making practice.
If this sounds like something you’d like to work on, join me! The practical workshop will give us time to focus on your situation in depth and there will be time for discussion over a light lunch.
For more information, and to book your place, visit the Clayhill Arts website.
Or if getting down to the SW isn’t an option for you, why not download my newest ebook – the Creative Practice Sustainability Audit – which takes you through the process of assessing the sustainability of your practice step-by-step.