We are often told to do activities out of our normal workday—meditation, spending time in nature, walking—in order to increase our productivity. But doing them can feel like a luxury we don’t have time for. And seeing remarkable art? That can fall to the very bottom of the list.
But when a friend came to visit last weekend, I was reminded of the real necessity of making room for art in our lives.
We visited Cheekwood, a Georgian style mansion turned art museum and wandered the beautifully manicured gardens. And then we stepped inside. And that’s when we discovered the genius of Steve Tobin, a multi-media artist whose work is both visually and emotionally appealing, particularly the pieces he calls “squeezes”.
Squeezes are made when he takes a chunk of clay and uses his hand to squeeze it into odd shapes. Once the shape is established, the pieces are glazed and fired and then ultimately transformed into a painted bronze.
Standing there, looking at these miraculous pieces of art, I understood what Tobin’s work suggests. Having a creative moment is just that – having a moment.
Yes, just a single moment. How often we believe that creativity has to be laborious, a long, drawn-out process that could take months even years to complete. We worry that it could steal our lives. But what if we dared to let art be as natural and easy as, say, squeezing a hand?
Walking back through the gardens, I pondered my own creativity and my conflicted emotions around it. There is, of course, a tremendous amount of craft that goes into a piece after the “creative moment”. The Tobin pieces went through many iterations – from kiln to forge, but if I focus on the iterations of what must happen to bring an idea – a book, a blog (for you it may be a painting, or a new business or a garden)—into fruition then I might become reluctant to move into the creative moment. If, on the other hand, I believe creativity is only about the moment, then my creativity will die like a seedling that lacks sun and water.
But if I remember that a big creative project is a series of moments, then I can let myself take that first moment, just like I took the time to see Tobin’s work.
So this week, step into your creative moment. Then… keep going. Oh yes and take time to look at art, you never know what you might find!
Share with us the creative moment you decided to step into in the comments.
Until next Tuesday,
Elizabeth