Lessons from the Past Year
Celebrating 1 year on Substack and completing Round 2 of The Artist's Way
Today is the 1st anniversary of this Substack and my inner artist’s 36th birthday (mine too, of course).
I started this blog as a fun way to prioritize more creative play. I thought maybe a few friends would want to follow along, but somehow there are now 64 people who want to have this in their inbox. Wow! Thank you all so much for reading. I hope this helps spark more creativity in your life too.
It has been over 2 months since I last wrote on here, but that was a good decision for me. In July, I started re-reading the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and was delighted to find an instant rush of creativity that led me to create Sparky. I then thought I should write a post here for each of the 12 weeks of the book. That quickly felt very overwhelming and I knew it would defeat the purpose of what I needed from the re-read in the first place: slowing down, staying present, releasing the shoulds, and focusing on my needs. I needed to be free to play, or my inner artist would throw an understandable tantrum. I am so glad I listened to myself.
Lessons from This Past Year & Round 2 of The Artist’s Way
As I reflect on what to write here, I am sitting with the fact that multiple things can be true at once. The last year has been both one of my hardest and one of my best. Some physical and mental health issues hit me hard, but I also learned so much more about myself. I am much stronger and braver than I thought. I am so lucky and grateful to have such supportive and caring people in my life and I love all the moments this past year when I deepened those connections. I am learning to find peace and joy in the gray spaces of life, to release that urge to find certainty. It’s hard, but it’s also so freeing. This gray space is where my inner artist thrives.
When I first read the book, I rated it 3 stars for the long winded, overly-complicated way it’s written and for some very dated statements that bother me. After this re-read though, I bumped that rating up to 4 stars. I cannot deny how deeply impactful and helpful the book is for me despite some of the flaws in its structure. This is another practice in living in the gray space: The Artist’s Way is far from perfect, but it also has been the perfect tool for me to heal and reconnect with my creativity. I can take the parts of it that are helpful to me and leave the parts that are not.
Community & Spiritual Practices
This time, thanks to some wonderful people signing up to join me, I was able to experience the power of a creative community. I loved hearing so many different perspectives, opinions, and ideas from the Creative Cluster. Each weekly Wednesday night call made me feel so inspired, excited, and so grateful. I formed this Creative Cluster through my online church, so having others also working on their spiritual journeys helped ground me more in the value of creativity as a spiritual practice too.
The book is written as a spiritual path, but my first time reading it, I wasn’t ready to dig into that part very deeply. I have been on a long faith deconstruction and reconstruction journey since college and the book’s spiritual aspects felt too scary to me two years ago. This time though I felt ready and much more open to the author’s words about God1 and spiritual practices. Some of it still felt scary to me, or some of it I just don’t agree with, and that’s okay. I was able to sit with those uncomfortable feelings better and find a way to connect to God more deeply through my creativity again. It will be an ongoing process to see what feels right for me, but I feel hopeful.
Some spiritual creative practices I enjoyed trying during the 12 weeks of the book:
meditating while drawing and listening to music
pulling 1 or 2 tarot2 cards for reflective writing prompts with my morning pages
mindfully walking in nature and feeling connected to the Creator
getting up earlier for quiet alone time before work to journal, reflect, listen
Clearing More Creative Blocks
I knew I still had some creative blocks left despite how helpful the first read-through was, so I felt ready to put on my metaphorical Mario overalls and uppercut some more bricks. These parts of the book really resonated with me again:
• Perfectionism: The book helped me check in with myself more deeply again and see that some unhealthy habits of perfectionism and people-pleasing were creeping back in to my life, especially at work. Being more aware of this helped me make some needed shifts and set healthier boundaries again. I love how much I care about others but caring for myself also needs to be a top priority.
• Trusting the Process: The book also gave me an important reminder of the inevitable “ugly stage” of the creative process. It’s so easy to feel deflated by that stage, when it looks so frustratingly horrible that you think you should just give up now instead of embarrassing yourself. It’s especially easy to feel this way when we see so many amazing end results from all the artists online. We are unfairly comparing our ugly stages to those polished masterpieces. Those masterpieces had ugly stages too. The artist just pushed through it (and chose not to post it).
I had to face this with a recent project I finally made time to do: updating my family’s portrait to replace the first one I did back in 2008. It started off so fun. I loved the sketch I made. Once I started adding the color though, I felt that fear sink its teeth in. Suddenly the base colors seemed all wrong, the paint felt too hard to control, and the drawing already felt ruined. I sat with the discomfort of it not looking good right away and tried to enjoy the process, trusting myself to find a way through. It was a bit messier than I had hoped, but I still finished it! I love it much more than the weird caricature attempt I did 16 years ago3, but I also feel so proud of that past me who I know was also so scared and finished it anyway.
• Unplugging more: The book challenges you for a week to take a break from reading and other media. It is so hard! But even doing it imperfectly helped me reevaluate how I spend my time. I could tell being online too much was affecting my mental health again, especially from election year stress. So I decided to try an app called ClearSpace4 that helps me be very intentional about the amount of time I can spend on social media. I have it set to 10 minutes, 3x a day for my different social apps. If I want to open a social app on my phone or iPad, I have to breathe for a minute and reflect on what I really need in that moment. Chances are I can find that somewhere else that will feel much better to me. Anxious? I can journal, go for a walk, talk to a friend. Bored? I can enjoy a hobby, go outside, or think of a new project idea more. Letting more boredom into our lives can be the best creative fuel.
Embracing My Outer Artist
This second journey through The Artist’s Way has magnified all of the small and subtle shifts in how I see myself and how I connect to my inner artist now. It has also accelerated the shifting of my tastes and interests. Suddenly I’m finding music playlists I used to love feel flat to me now. I am craving to listen to whole albums instead, or different genres than before. The asymmetrical haircut I tried earlier this year suddenly felt so wrong for me. I felt ready to try the pixie cut I’ve always wanted but had been afraid to try. And I love it! I am excited to play with my wardrobe more next, now that I have my sewing table set up.
Getting back into the practice of morning pages and artist dates again has made a noticeable difference in my energy and creativity levels. On a walk, I got an idea for a cozy fantasy story I want to write for fun this winter to see where it takes me. I found I like getting up earlier now, so I have quiet time before work to write, think, ease into the day. I never thought I would be a morning person5, or want to write a whole book. I plan to keep up with the Artist’s Way practices and see what other surprises await me. This free website is really helping me stick with the morning pages habit now. I wrote them by hand during the 12 weeks, as the book instructs, but I know it’s more flexible and sustainable for me to type them now. And The Artist’s Way is ultimately about listening to and trusting yourself, so I can do what I want. 😉
I also finally took the time to update my online portfolio after not touching it for years. I have a bad memory, so this update helped me see just how much I have created and grown as a designer and artist over the years. Sparky looks so cute as my new little logo too. I will try to keep this updated every year or so now.
Question for your Inner Artist
• What is something you did this past year that you’re proud of?
The author talks about God a lot through the book, but she does say to use what language works best for you. Universe, flow, source, etc. So if you don’t believe in God, but you are wanting a creative spiritual practice, you can still get a lot from this book.
I used to be scared of Tarot cards and other things that I thought could be “evil”. Playing with them now is very healing. To me now, they are just tools for focusing on listening to your inner voice, perfect as journaling prompts.
I had to triple-check that math. 16 years. Yet my brain feels that 2008 was only maybe 8 years ago. Did we fall into a Time Warp?
This is a paid app, but I find I need that extra push to keep me motivated to using it. Since I’m paying for it, not breaking my streak feels a bit more important.
Disclaimer that I have to set an alarm across the room, or it’s still hard to get out of my cozy bed, especially as we move into the cold months. Don’t think that I’m suddenly waking up magically early, jumping out of bed, ready to go. 😂
Happy Birthday Kim 💕🥳 loved to read your journey with the book and that helped you in many ways! Your website is looking so good 😍
Thanks for sharing! So many great insights here and I'm glad the year has been a rewarding one despite the challenges. And I'm going to check out the ClearSpace app for myself too.