Pack your art supplies and bring a thermos - we're heading off on an easygoing artist's adventure into the natural world
I've noticed a pattern in the creative process, and I'm guessing you have too. It always makes me think of a wave; the rising, the surfing, the folding, the crashing, and then the pause as it pulls back to begin again.
This course is about that pulling back stage.
It can come after the end of a long or intense period of creativity, or after the completion of a painting. Sometimes it simply happens as a result of life events {or global pandemics}. You'll know it as that phase of quietness, of little or no inspiration. Many people find it very challenging to navigate.
I call it the Afterslump.
I've encountered this phase in the creative process literally hundreds of times. At this point, I navigate it with greater ease than I used to, but that doesn't mean it never challenges me.
Capitalist culture has trained us very effectively to value achievement, productivity, and outcomes - the yang of life. It can feel hard to give over some space and time to rest, quiet, or non-doing - to the yin.
However, some of us find greater rest in certain activities than in doing nothing at all. And sometimes, although we're ready for a pause, we'd still like to be flexing our creative muscles, albeit in a softer, more low pressure way.
Come with me through the garden gate and I'll share with you what I know about making art in collaboration with nature, as a restful, restorative, healing activity for those downtimes, sad times, global pandemic times, and times when you need just a little creative project to keep you ticking over.
It will never fail you."
Frank Lloyd Wright