Reflections on Creative Rest

Creativity is like the tide. Every time it goes out, no matter how far, it always, eventually, returns. Reflections on inspiration, creativity, and learning to embrace rest as I learn the patterns of my creative seasons.

“In the last month, I hardly painted. My mind was drawn to almost any other task – organizing my studio space, scanning paintings, cleaning and refilling my palette, and updating my website. I pull out my watercolor palette and any excitement I had about painting dissipates like a distant summit disappearing in a dense cloud. I hate to admit it to myself, but I am tired. And I might need a break.” – Journal, October 29, 2022.

I wrote this in my journal after my busiest season of field painting ever. Between April 1 and September 30th 2022, I spent nearly 100 days at art residencies, on backpacking trips painting/filming every day, or out on a day-trip to create. Three months. A goal I had worked toward for many, many years, with the accumulated letters of rejection to prove it. What I didn’t expect, and probably should have, was that after this incredibly inspiring and fulfilling time, I would need a break from the painting practices that I love the most.

It is hard to admit, in some ways, that I’m not painting all the time. I am often asked about this, and sometimes people are surprised to hear that I do not paint every day, and can even go long periods of time without painting at all.

Creative rest (or cyclical creativity) is something I rarely see talked about, especially in the continued age of social media. It is so easy to give and get the impression of continual creative output when every square on a screen is a carefully curated version of our lives. And, these curated visions of productivity are more and more associated with the freelance/ artist “hustle culture” that emphasizes the need to be producing all the time as a foundation for success in any venture.

When faced with this input every time I login to social media, it is all too easy to slip into a comparative mindset and feel like I am not being a successful artist because I am not painting every day and pooping out an amazing series of paintings as fast as everyone else. We so rarely hear the stories of rest and reset, because the images of me doing nothing or rearranging my studio are not what the internet algorithms like. And I freely admit that photos of me cleaning a palette for an hour would likely be incredibly boring.

I just wish those stories were told more, which is why I decided to write about it here.

Over the last few years, I struggled with letting go of comparison and embracing the cyclical nature of my creativity. I experience huge ups and downs within my creative practice (and corresponding number of paintings), and I now understand that all elements of this cycle are equally important. I will have incredibly intense periods of creating multiple paintings every day while on a residency or working on a project in the studio, and then this output comes to a screeching halt as soon as the residency is done, or the timeline completed.

During the peak of most residencies, I am hiking 5-10 miles a day, painting outside for 2-3 hours, taking hundreds of reference images, filming parts of the process and hike, eating copious snacks, and ending the day with another sketch or organizing the day’s video and photos. And now as a watercolor teacher, I throw in filming a 2-3 hour watercolor class in a single take on each trip.

Then, when I get home, this structure and my intense focus fall away, and I often wander rather aimlessly around the house for a few days trying to unpack (and mostly just moving things from one pile to another. I love piles). And, I often felt so guilty for ignoring my paints and reading a good book in two days or binge watching a new tv show with my Mom.

Hustle culture tells us that this high intensity is what we should aim for, all the time, and that operating at 100% every day is somehow the only path to success. And yet so many artists and creatives also get burned out quickly. I now know - and expect - that after a period of huge output there will likely be a corresponding period of rest needed to reset. Instead of seeing this time where I don’t feel like painting at all as a failure of mental strength or my inner creative wellspring, I try to see it as the utterly natural counterbalance to the amazing things I just did. This more accepting and gentle mentality is a work in progress, and will likely be that way for a while.

I was talking about this recently with Steph Jagger, who said that forcibly attempting to be creative at a high level all the time is like looking at a flower that just finished its amazing display of life and color, and demanding that “you bloom again right now!!”

I love her quote so much. It is hard for me to think about creativity and my desire to create as something that requires resources and recharging. But when I reflect on it….why wouldn’t it? I throw all of myself into each residency and field painting experience or hard studio project. For weeks I will be amazingly creative, push my boundaries as an artist and sustain an insanely high level of focus and presence. After my conversation with Steph, it seemed so obvious, that of course I will need a break! Like a plant that gathered the energy for a year to bloom just once, I need to let myself recharge, too.

Now, when I look at the cadence of a year, a clear pattern emerges; My busiest season coincides with the best weather and when land-based art residencies are available (spring, summer, early fall) and when I am outside creating as much as possible. Then, my “slow” season begins in late October and extends until the end of April. At home in the Pacific Northwest, it gets dark early (around 4 pm during the shortest days), and I create 70-100% less each week than peak season.

And, because I love to paint outdoors and on hiking trips, my creative ups and downs align with the natural seasons of my environment. This wont happen for everyone, but as someone who tries to be very grounded in what is happening around me ecologically over the course of a year, this resonance of creativity with the flow of the seasons makes sense.

I should also be clear that during these periods of rest I’m not ensconced in blankets by a wood burning fire with a cup of tea the entire time (I wish I was). I can’t afford to as a freelance artist. I just work on different things for the most part. For example, last winter I focused on learning more about video (and busting out of my comfort zone in that new medium), exploring some new techniques in acrylic paint and poster paints, making big improvements to my watercolor classes websites, drawing in ink for 100 days… you get the idea. All of these are things different from painting watercolor, and many of them are tied to aspects of my business. Just doing something different gives my creative self a rest.

It is interesting to me that in conversation with students, I hear echoes of this same ebb and flow, and of the judgement we are so quick to internally apply as a result. And, in some ways, I think the pressure we put on ourselves is almost greater when we are just learning or starting, because we are hoping to see progress. I think a lot of really beautiful creative journeys are cut short because we try a new thing, love it for a while and want to engage with it a lot. And then something shifts, or we hit a challenging roadblock, or think our skills plateaued. And, perhaps instead of an end, these moments are just part of our emerging creative cycle, where our heart and mind are telling us they need to do something else for a bit, to let the learning and practice sink and alchemize into new inspiration. Maybe we just need some time to rest or focus on the other voices and symphonies on our lives. And that’s ok. That’s good. Because I really believe that creativity is like the tide. Every time it goes out, no matter how far, it always, eventually, returns.

Feel free to stop by in the comments if you would like to share any thoughts or say hello. Thank you for being here.