What are the invisible barriers to creativity?
(I write this thinking… there must be others out there in this boat….)
Creatives can be overwhelmed with the burdens of SHOULDs. We get in our head that we should sell, it should be pretty, it should be current, we should try to show our work, we should be anatomically accurate… the list is endless.
Recently I’ve reached a creative block. I know it is in NO small part due to just being too tired to put in the effort, but it is also because I’m bored with the direction of my art. It isn’t fun. (How many portraits of strangers can I paint?) Things are all starting to look the same, emotionally flat. The SHOULDs in my head are keeping my options for change very narrow. The fact is that there really is nothing keeping me from changing drastically, I just lack imagination!
It dawns on me that I’m afraid… afraid that I’m somehow not doing it right. How crazy is that? There is NO RIGHT, only satisfaction and dissatisfaction. I’m painting for myself, I am either happy with my success at expressing myself or not, and I’m clearly not happy with my direction. So I’m on an adventure to try and figure out why it’s not working for me; be it technique, design, medium, subject… or whatever. Perhaps it’s time to blow the lid off and try something completely new; perhaps acrylic or collage. I’ve vowed not to do anything until I’m excited about it. Until then I’m trying to ignore the SHOULDs that tell me I should want to paint… and I should be in the studio beating my head against a wall.
~ Lynn