An important aspect of developing our own creative practice is noticing and embracing our personal rhythms. Not everyone creates in the same way. None of us have the same lives, routines, commitments, and so on. While advice about the practical side of creative routines and practices can be helpful, this is glaring limiation. You are the one living your life. This is why I believe an important part of having a creative practice is developing an awareness around how we live, how we work, how we think and feel and the forces that influence all of the above.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about maintenance mode as an antidote to feeling like we need to be doing more and doing it bigger, and I’m sharing something related in this post.
Enter: the gardening analogy. We don’t harvest our veggies the same day we plant our seeds and often this is true for our creative work too. The creative process is akin to gardening in three key ways:
There are times for planting seeds and times for harvesting crops
The creative process is often cyclical. Just like spring is a time for planting seeds and later summer and autumn are times to harvest, you might see a similar pattern reflected in your creative process. You might have periods of research, gathering new ideas, artist dates, developing new skills, returning to old ones, and so on. And you might also have periods of prolific output, finishing energy that enables you to wrap up open projects, and lots to show for your efforts. Both parts of the cycle are equally important and necessary.
Roots before shoots
We might go through periods when it feels like nothing is happening. But is that really true? Or is there something growing just out of sight, waiting for the right conditions to emerge? Seeds need to send out roots before shoots. The roots help keep them anchored, fed, and sustain their growth. Our personal roots might include ensuring our basic needs are met and we have the physical and mental bandwidth for our creative practice. They also require giving ourselves permission to hang out in the “planting” stage for as long as we need to. It might not seem like we have anything to show for our efforts, but great things can be happening just out of sight.
We need to tend to what we’re growing
Very few plants (that we want to be in our gardens, anyway) will thrive unattended. They need watering, supporting, pruning, and more. Our creative practice also needs tending to. This means paying attention, following our curiosity, carefully unwinding threads that come up, seeing projects through (even when it gets hard), and showing up to our creative practice, even if it feels like nothing is happening. We need to at least check in on it once in a while to make sure the soil isn’t getting too dry, maybe to build a little something around it to prevent it from being nibbled on, and so on. Draw the parallels with your own creative practice as you will 🙂
Reflective questions for you:
– When have you noticed the planting/harvesting cycle in your creative work?
– What counts as “planting seeds” in your creative work? What needs to germinate before you can begin a project?
– What are the roots you need to grow before the shoots of your creative work can emerge? Are there any that need attention right now?
– How do you tend to your growing creative practice? In what conditions does it thrive? How do you protect it from outside forces?
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