Blocked? Take your inner artist out for a walk.

One of the most valuable ‘how-to’ books I’ve ever read is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.  Whenever I have that ‘blocked’ feeling – you know the one?  – I reach for Julia.  The book is so thumbed, it’s a pile of pages I keep in jiffy bag.

I hate that blocked feeling.  You have a task to do, you can’t seem to get going with it.  It’s there when you wake up in the morning, because you dreamed about it.   It nags you all day, like a mouth ulcer.  Julia Cameron understands why , and has practical ways of dealing with uninvited blocks.  Even if you aren’t engaged in a traditional artistic pursuit, her ideas have relevance.  Life itself can be a creative exercise.  Everything feels kinder and more fun when approached in a playful spirit.

I realise that I chose this as my blog subject because I am currently creatively stuck.  While my novel-in-progress is going well, there is some artwork I desperately want to do, which I cannot get started on.

I circle my work table like a fox eyeing a chicken run.  I sit and think.  I look at books of other people’s work.  I make cups of tea.   I do anything but apply lines to paper.  Aged eighteen, at Art College, I first discovered this tendency.   My hair grew thin, I was a furnace of unresolved misery and eventually, I ran away.  To London which, for a time, was even more stressful.   I stuffed my art materials at the back of a cupboard and left them there for two decades.  Not blocked, paralysed.  And now, stasis has struck again.   

‘Take your artist for a walk’ says Julia Cameron.  Give your inner Picasso a day off.   Press refresh.  Have fun.  Or if you can’t have fun, have any sort of experience.  Just make it different.

I’m recovering from major surgery and am not allowed to drive yet, so I can’t zip off to the coast, to an art gallery, or ride a roller coaster.  The friends I’d normally ring up are either away or indisposed.  I could ring for a magician or a balloon artist, but it’s Easter Sunday.  So, as we used to say where I grew up, I must mek me own fun.   I’m going to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, which is way out of my comfort zone.  I’m going to paddle in the stream at the bottom of my field and while I do it, I’m going to notice ten things in nature that I’ve never noticed before.

This may seem a somewhat underwhelming afternoon whoop-up, but I’m working within my limits.  And the whole point of taking your inner artist out on a jolly, or in my case, a splosh, is to create a shift in perspective.  I don’t know about you, but I can live happily inside my comfort zone, avoiding challenges and change.   Being rigid is good for some things (roof joists spring to mind) but it has no place in creativity.   Creativity is about risk.  It’s about pushing boundaries while accepting that the end result might be disappointing, or even catastrophic.   I sing in a choir and there’s a lady there who throws out angry looks whenever somebody sings a wrong note (though interestingly, never when she sings one).  I tell her all the time that nothing begins in perfection – we need to allow ourselves to make mistakes.  Why else would singers rehearse?   At the same time, I  am refusing to paint because I’m scared the end result will be awful.  I’m giving myself angry looks.  Time to stop.

Two hours later . . .

 

You never have to ask dogs twice to come for a walk.  We headed down the fields that are rock hard following a dry spell, to the stream which has no name, and which is a middling trickle.   I stare at its stony bottom dubiously.  I tell myself it only looks greeny-brown because of overhanging trees.  Rusty, my big Labrador, hurls himself in.  He has no blocks.   My little Lab, Amber, waits for me to take the lead.    Off with boots and socks, throw them to the other side, and I slither.  Yeeaw. How can water be this cold in April?   Amber stares at me, wondering what on earth I’m dithering for.  I start moving.  Youch!  Sharp stones.  I pull myself up the far bank with the help of a sapling and sting myself on a clump of nettles.   I’m in a small patch of woodland, through which I walk twice a day and which I know intimately.  Irritated and uncomfortable, I set myself to noticing ten new things.   It takes a while.  My blocks and I are having a stand-off.  But in the end, they give in.

 

Cow Parsley in early spring is amazingly soft, and its buds curl under like the scroll of a violin.
The fallen bough of an oak tree has 110 rings and is one fourth the circumference of the main trunk, making the mother tree around 400 years old.
Fungus like chewed winegums grows on dead branches of beech trees.
The bark of a living beech is absolutely smooth.  Squirrels could slide down it like firemen slide down poles.
Leaves sprout directly from beech branches, like the leaves on the classic Tarot wand.
The water in the stream sparkles and shimmers even when there is no wind and the trees above are absolutely still.
Ivy only seems to colonise the hawthorn trees.
The oilseed rape in the field behind me is so sulphurous, my eyes are stinging.
The soil is cracked like the markings on a giraffe’s neck.
A tiny hedge sparrow pumps out a song three times its body weight.

The Dress Thief, Natalie Meg Evans’ novel set in 1930s Paris is out in ebook on May 29th, and in paperback on June 5th.  Available to pre-order from Amazon etc.