Art and Creativity: Moving Through the Creative Doldrums

Life comes and goes in cycles.

The same can often be said of creativity; most artists and creatives I have met seem to have "up" periods and "down" periods.

At the Red Dragonfly, we occasionally get asked what an artist needs to do to move through the creative doldrums. Are there any secrets? Any "magic pills" that will fire up the creative juices?

Sadly... I have to admit that there aren't. Cycles are simply a fact of life; in most cases, the best we can hope to do is manage them.

Understanding the dynamics of Creative Down Cycles

There's an old truism — written in a myriad different ways — that simply acknowledging and understanding a problem is already half the solution. 

Beyond that, people also tend to discover that much of their stuckness is self-inflicted. 

How often has this happened to you?

You're going along, doing your thing — it could be writing, it could be painting, it could be something else — and you can't get anything to turn out the way you want it to. As you keep trying — and everything feels "mediocre" — a certain frustration mounts, and you start feeling pressure to "produce SOMEthing." As a result of which your work feels stilted and awkward, only adding to the sensation that you're stuck. And now you're really stuck. 

Finally, you give up and just tell yourself that you'll have a "double day" tomorrow. 

Except... tomorrow is even worse.

Sadly, you've done most of this to yourself! What was a small creative block is now a giant ball of frustration. 

Don't "Should" on Yourself!

A lot of times we end up with creative blocks because a small voice inside our heads tells us we "should" be able to finish a certain painting, or write two chapters by a certain deadline.

Creative cycles are a natural part of life... and sometimes the single best thing we can do is simply step away from what we're doing; be it for an hour, a day, a week and focus on something completely different.

When I get stuck with my writing, my best solution is to simply STOP and don something completely different. That could be meditation, or cooking something (I like baking!), or maybe working in the yard.

I know the world is full of excellent advice for creative "jumpstarts," but quite often what we need to do is totally "break state" and go do something completely unrelated. Our brains simply become overloaded with what we're working on, and no amount of "creative visualization" or other gimmicks will help — we simply need to "break state."

Giving Yourself Permission

It always surprises me how easily people end up with feelings of guilt. Notwithstanding the whole "don't should on yourself" thing, we have a lot of negative self-talk because we somehow "failed" to do things we wanted to.

Not so fast!

Let's remember that the creative process is not like adding columns of numbers. In art, there's no 2+2 that's always going to equal four. Art is very fluid; so is writing... so you can't expect to perform according to some fixed formula. And intuition doesn't really work well on a schedule!

Because of this, we sometimes need to "give ourselves permission" to not be doing our work. Maybe that sounds obvious, but it can be surprisingly difficult for artists and creatives to "give in" and go do something relatively meaningless and non-creative.

But just DO it!

Flashes of Inspiration

I have previously written about how I sometimes get my best flashes of inspiration while doing something completely unrelated to either art or writing.

The other day I "wrote" (in my head) no less than five Steemit posts while preparing breakfast while the kids were visiting for the Mother's Day weekend. Immediately prior to that, I had spent almost an hour wondering what the heck I was going to write about!

So just relax and don't stress too much about creative dry spells. Sure, that can seem counterintuitive sometimes-- and I can hear a few voices in the background saying things like "Easy for you to say — I have to have 15 pieces ready for a show next month!"

Well, even just a day "off" can help, and odds are you'll finish your show pieces without too much trouble.

Thank you for reading! Red Dragonfly is a proud member of the @sndbox creative initiative.

The Red Dragonfly is an independent alternative art gallery located in Port Townsend, WA; showcasing edgy and unique contemporary art & handmade crafts by local and worldwide artists. All images are our own, unless otherwise credited. Where applicable, artist images used with permission.