The Best Time and Place to Make Art

When the Last Child Leaves You Great Fiction: Start With "What if..."

The Best Time and Place to Make Art

The other day we had a baby shower for my oldest daughter. Two hours before guests arrived we commissioned Winnie-the-Pooh food tags. However, Brynne, (aka the “real painter”) had to go to work and so I said I would do it. whuuuuut?

I ran upstairs, found my neglected watercolor paper, brushes, and paint, cut squares with our old and rusty paper cutter, and literally traced Winnie the Pooh characters RIGHT FROM MY COMPUTER.

Never mind they weren’t perfect (difficult with thick watercolor paper), the clock was ticking.

It was great, hurried fun.

I was telling myself MAYBE NEXT TIME DON’T START TWO HOURS before guests are arriving but I’ve changed my mind. The ticking clock made for part of the fun. More time would have just given me more time to overthink, overanalyze, stew, fight the imposter voices, etc etc. My task was to work really fast and be happy with whatever happened.

I’ve been reflecting on this, realizing that the best place to make art is right in your own home, right here and now. My mother is always drawing pictures for her grandchildren as she tells them witch stories - they are delightful!

My normal world:

my mother is fun!

Try it! Draw for the kids, the parents, the grandkids, your nieces and nephews, the neighbors and their kids. Draw for the dogs.

Work really fast and give yourself a hard stop.

Wow, if we did this every day, we’d get really good pretty quick.

I finished within thirty minutes of guests arriving and then raced to the bathroom to do something with my humidity-electric-socket-looking curly hair (which turned out not as cute as the pooh cards).

The cards were cute, totally imperfect, and I got lots of external validation with - “what? you did that?”

Yes, I did. And so can you.

Adults making art is so delightful because it’s unexpected! If I imagine my dignified dad holding a crayon and drawing a picture, it makes me laugh. Why? Give the man some crayons!

Art is not for the select few. Like Brene Brown says, creativity is within all of us - it just requires a mix of vulnerability and courage. Both of which we have aplenty.

Speaking of creativity, all the food was my husband’s idea and doing. This is his way of being creative. I am the happy beneficiary.

Think about how crazy brilliant creative we ~~have~~ get to be as adults. We talk about losing creativity as we age, but I think it’s more like the battlefield of life changes and we adapt - we continue being super creative to survive each and every life situation.

We often stop doing the things we think of as “creative” like coloring and painting and making up wild stories (actually, NVM, aren’t we always making up wild stories in our head?)1 but that doesn’t mean we aren’t creative -

Ya’ll, we ARE CREATIVE.

No matter your job, being a human requires a tremendous amount of imagination.

All of the pivots, instant “out of the box” decisions during a personnel or child crisis, the juggling of schedules, the sibling wars, the summer calendars and chore charts, the “reframing”, the listening to different Points of View, the teaching, coaching, and adapting to fit someone else’s learning style. We adults do very creative work all of the time - at home, at work, at play (I hope we are playing).

Life-ing and parenting are the perfect training grounds for creative work. You’re already doing it. There will be a hundred creative opportunities just today if we pay a little more attention to them.

You have to be more intentional about picking up a paintbrush or actually writing the story instead of keeping it in your head, but look at your track record. You’ve already proved your creativity in thousands and thousands of ways as a living human being.

Practice every day art on your people, the neighbors, your colleagues, the dogs. They’ll love it. And so will you.

You don’t have to worry one second about “being good” or monetizing your creativity. Just do it because it’s fun, satisfying, and brings joy to the soul - most especially yours.

Let me reassure you: anyone who gets a homemade card or handwritten letter or dinner bouquet will be THRILLED. You might even inspire them to make their own creation.

I’m seriously going to buy my dad some Crayola crayons, and he just turned 70. I can’t wait to see what genius comes out of him (right, dad?!?!)

Yes, I believe you can.

Carpe Diem, friends,

Amy 💖

Substacks making art that I love to drool over:

(Illustrating life and stories)

(Children’s illustrator)

(Artist, author, teacher, stunning watercolorist)

(Children’s writer and illustrator)

(Comics and musings about life)

(New Yorker cartoonist and matador)

(Writer and teacher, draws pretty things!)

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