Overcoming Artist Block

My Montecito artist friend, AWS, experienced the phenomena we call “artist block.” He taught a class to a local Arts Association about ways to overcome “creative block.” He called last week to report the results of teaching that class, and asked me to share his findings with my readers, who, as he said, are no doubt “creatives.”

What do artists of any medium do when they feel unhappy, and stuck? The illustrated artistic portrayal, “The Passion of Uncertainty” by Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945), shows a writer wrestling with creative block, a reflection of the painter’s own frustration. Pasternak knew how painful “uncertainty” felt. The portraitist fled Russia, then Germany, during WWII. Even so he illustrated Tolstoy’s War And Peace and other Tolstoy novels. He was also the father of Nobel prize winning novelist and poet Boris Pasternak. This painting feels familiar, as I experienced a creative writer’s block recently after the loss of a family member.

Austrian psychologist Edmund Bergler first coined the term “Creative Block” in 1947 to defined that exquisite anxiety when confronting a new canvas, or writing a new work. In my case, pre-writer’s block, I loved to write, well-known author friends recommended “free writing.” Dorothea Brande said in her 1934 book Becoming a Writer:

Write or paint for fifteen minutes each morning—forget about grammar or structure, or composition, and avoid the feeling of commitment to your art—just write, or paint. Do not fear a blank canvas or a white page, and make no corrections.

Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, along with Burroughs and Ginsberg, pioneered free-form spontaneous writing.

AWS’s Tips on Overcoming Artist Block

AWS asked his students, “what’s YOUR remedy for becoming unstuck?” AWS reports that many artists fall prey to self-criticism, apathy, resentment, fear of failure, and rigid repetitive negative self-talk. As I said, this topic is dear to my heart. After losing a loved one I only stared at the blank page. Many friends suggested I loosen my thought process. Polling his class, AWS reported ten salient things to overcome “creative block,” remedies for artists who wish to become unstuck—and action plans:

Do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. If you’re working on a large project, do a small one, take it to an uncomfortable place. “Go to an extreme,” my artist friend said,  then, “move back to a more comfortable place.”Go as far away from where you are as possible. Leave the house, the studio…. Observe chaos, see how it resolves in the natural order. Such as, in nature, in the waves on a shore, in the waning of the moon. YOU are part of that order. You will win your work back from the uncertainty that you feel.When you feel stuck, remember doubt drives your work. ‘Stuck’ is a part of the discovery of where you will go NEXT.Another artist friend said, “Adversity is your wealth; you don’t need to get rid of this feeling. It’s one of the sources of energy and wisdom.”Ask your best friends about your project. Does this make sense? Are these concepts getting across? How can I improve on this project? Then listen—but don’t always follow the advice.Go see art, listen to poetry or music. Make a mental note that the music or poetry or canvases you saw or heard were at one time new babies. Then write, paint, or compose–put things down…those thoughts are also NEW.Go eat noodles with friends. Be a kid again with trusted folks.Read an artist who soothed themselves through a hard time, such as those poems by Rilke or Browning. Creative people are sensitive and they must KNOW they’re not alone, and need to remind themselves of that fact.When you feel stuck, or stagnant, make circles, draw them until you don’t look at them anymore. Make notes under each circular drawing about how the circle helped you, hypothetically, to get un-stuck…then take a hot bath. Feel as much of the world as fits in one bath, drain it all, dry off—and walk away.Look at Renaissance and Old Master paintings or read some Dante or Chaucer. Remind yourself art and creativity are good, and you, as the creator, need patience, and you’re one of select group in this world.

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