New growth – little shoots
Tomorrow is my last day teaching 3rd year students at Nottingham Trent University. We’ve been working towards building their confidence in communicating about their work, especially in written form. We’ve been thinking about the essentials of communication – understanding your values, your audience, the context of your work – and we’ve delved into the wonderful world of words and how great writing stems from finding good descriptive, emotive and sensory language. Now it’s time to start writing their Artist’s Statements. I’m confident it will go well; we’ve been having some good conversations. What I love about this part is that here I can see the seeds being sown, things that still need a bit of time to mature, but which will eventually emerge, as they do, into the world at their Degree Shows.
As I told them in the first session – one of my core values in my work is Learning & Growth. If I’m not learning and growing (or helping other people to learn and grow, in whatever way they need) then why am I doing it?
It’s something that’s easy to forget when there’s a lot on – the things that are fundamental to our work, the reasons we do it. When I get busy the first thing to disappear is my awareness of the big picture. I become obsessed with detail and tasks. I forget the broad strokes of my work. This week, with the lengthening days and the signs of spring everywhere I look out in the world, I realised that I’ve got my own signs of spring happening inside me, within my work, even if it feels like things are still a bit barren.
Revisiting ideas
It’s almost half way through November and the challenge of NaNoWriMo. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m using it mainly as a way to get into the habit of writing daily, and in a more focused way, rather than trying to get the first draft of a novel down (my writing is non-fiction anyway so that’s another deviation from the path…) And I should say that things are going pretty well. I’ve found time every day to write, even if that’s only to get a quick 500 words down in between other things. What is most heartening is to see the gradual accumulation of words, a bank of ideas that might develop into other things, later.
Anyway, it dawned on me that I have no way of categorising or indexing all this writing. Which isn’t such a problem for the daily free-writing (which is mostly just stream-of-consciousness stuff out of my head) but for the focused pieces, where I’m starting to draw out ideas I may want to work on later, well – I need a plan!
The impulse to save
It is often around this time of year that I feel a slight shift, as the daylight is in short supply and winter feels close at my back. I notice that I switch from feeling full of energy for being outside, and doing things, to wanting to hibernate. I resist this temptation for as long as possible, but experience tells me that I will eventually succumb and it will be hard to muster the motivation for more than the bare essentials of living and working. Luckily the weather here in London at the moment is incredibly mild and the sun, when it’s out, is still golden and glorious, so I don’t need much encouragement to be out in the world. But I can feel it, waiting. And it’s got me thinking about this tendency to draw in, to hold on to things, to save stuff.
I don’t think anyone would argue with the impulse to squirrel ourselves away in winter, to stay cosy and enjoy the benefits of central heating and twinkly lights. But, what about when that desire to curl up starts to permeate into other areas of your life, like your work or your creative practice? What then? Where is the balance between healthy, natural protective behaviour (like retreating in winter) and things that don’t help at all?
The Creative Return – Reflection
September is the time of year for getting back to things (work, school, the routine of our daily lives) after the summer break. The French call this time of year La Rentrée – the return – and it affects everyone, not just workers and students. I like to think of this time of year as the Creative Return – where we can harness this feeling of beginning, to look forward to the rest of the year and prepare, to be ready to meet whatever opportunities or challenges we may come to.
This month, on the blog, I’ll be taking the theme of the Creative Return to focus on 4 elements: Values, the Big Picture, Reflection and Looking Forwards, with the aim of helping you remind yourself of your Why, to feel inspired about your work, to reflect on past successes and to set a course ahead. I’ll be asking you questions that get to the heart of each element and offering places you can gain additional inspiration or chances for reflection. Last week we looked at the Big Picture, this week we look at Reflection:
With the long days comes time to reflect
I’m so pleased it’s finally June! There were many times all through spring where I wondered if the sun would ever return, whether the plants were going to just hibernate forever. But finally I feel I can relax, my warm weather clothes can stay in my wardrobe and I can finally put away my boots! […]
Happy birthday little blog!
This week my blog turns 1 year old. For the last 52 weeks I have posted something that I have written and sent it out into the strange, empty-feeling void of the internet where, I hope, some people have found it. I have managed to do this every single week (except for the time I had unbelievably bad food poisoning and so gave myself a pass) and that in itself is a massive achievement for me.
I am someone who is motivated most easily by external things – mostly doing things for others and feeling responsible to them. I am challenged when it comes to doing things where I have to be internally motivated, things for myself. This blog, although it has some outward facing elements, at its heart is a selfish endeavour. I write for me. I write because I need to – it helps me sort out things in my head – and because I want to. I want to get better at it, I want to write things that connect with people, I want to share things I find out. In that respect, because it is mainly for me, I’m not sure I expected that I would stick with it. I honestly thought it would end up like many of those other failed one-a-day-sketches/photographs/journal writing type exercises that I have started over the years. That I am still here, a year later, making the time to write each week and get it out, is something I feel rather proud of.
Take it easy on yourself
When I started the blog I naively thought that I would be able to write 3 blog posts a week on 3 different topics. After all, I had lots to say; lots of ideas to share and lots of experiences with makers that I thought other people might find interesting and/or useful. Well, that thought quickly got scaled back when I realised just how much effort it is for me to maintain the routine of posting once a week. Yes, I did have lots of content that I could share, but once most of that was covered, and I had to think up new things on a regular basis- in amongst all my other work and travel- it wasn’t as straightforward as I’d imagined. You’d think that the once-a-week plan would be simple too, but the number of times I’m pulling something out of the bag late on a Tuesday (or even on Wednesday itself) because I’ve only just realised that I have to post something tomorrow! It’s almost comical.
When this happens, which is more often that I would like, my first instinct is not to help myself and be kind: ‘That’s ok Melody, you’ve been busy this week, what can we do now that will make this easier?’ No, instead, it’s to berate myself: ‘You’ve only got to come up with one post and you can’t do that on time!’ You see I hold myself to outrageously high standards and expect myself to meet them all the time, no excuses.
Today is all about balance
I would love to say that this week things have felt less rushed, but if anything I think I may feel a bit more stretched than ever. I am still quite busy with work-related things and I’ve compounded that by not managing to take as much time as I’d like for ‘me’ activities like exercise and creative pursuits. As a result, somewhat inevitably, I’ve been unwell (with a 2 day migraine and a neck injury) which has left me feeling tired and frustrated. But I also know the signs well enough to know that I need to take note and be careful.
And so it seems fitting that as today is the vernal equinox my post is about balance. Today is a special day for me and noticing it, marking it, is important. Today winter ends and spring begins. The day and night are balanced in this moment. And from here, for the next 3 months, the days begin to edge out over the night time and light returns to our lives. For someone who suffers from seasonal affective disorder the shift from dark to light has a massive effect. I’m not sure if that’s purely psychological – it definitely helps to know, as a fact, that the days are getting longer – but I know I feel different mentally and physically this week.
Rushing not reflecting
I am often in a rush. There are lots of things to do (right now!) and I’m always thinking ‘what’s next?’ It feels like I have a tightly wound spring in my chest which keeps me moving in haste. Sometimes I even catch myself not breathing. I am fairly certain that this low-level anxiety is a contributing factor to me finding it hard to stop, even for a moment or two. Looking after myself, stopping to refresh or to reflect, is frequently the lowest priority activity on my list.
I’m a big advocate for regularly taking time to reflect on how things are going, especially in your creative practice. It can be helpful to pause and not jump straight into the next thing. If we take the time to reflect after each big event or body of work, it’s so much easier to navigate a path forward, one that is responsive to our needs and in line with our values.