7 ways You can be more creative
in the New Year:
An idea for each day of the week
By Mighty.Beautiful
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish this year. There are a lot of projects I’m working on and excited about, that I have big plans for — though they are all fluid. The projects can each adapt and evolve, they can breathe and become something and I might not know exactly what that is going to be. I’m okay with that. What really matters to me, I realized, is that I actually take advantage of this moment of creative freedom I’m having, this flow I’m in — and not let it go to waste. After feeling so stuck for so long (the news cycle really gets to me), I want this year to be my most creative year yet. That’s my goal, and all other goals — the normal exercise goals and the organizational goals — rotate around it.
I feel like many of my friends have been or currently are in that same position that I was in last year — feeling stuck, trapped and depressed, not really believing they can get out. Not feeling safe where they are and not believing in a safe place to get to. I don’t think it’s just us. America is not great right now, not even close. We are sick, we are drained, we are sad for the world around us, we are overwhelmed, we are losing our homes to natural disasters, we are losing our family members to ICE raids and mass shootings. We are the most incarcerated country in the world. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with 47,173 deaths in 2017 — 129 per day — and an estimated 1.3 million attempts that same year. I could go on and on and on — but I actually just can’t bring myself to do it.
America is, by and large, not happy. We can look at the situations in Guatemala and Venezuela and our own border and Syria and Yemen and we can realize we are still the lucky ones, will probably always be the lucky ones — and that is just too difficult to wrap our heads around. But it is easy to just be not happy, to cry and to curl into a ball with some Netflix and let the days pass by, one after another.
I’ve had those low points: difficult break ups, two flash flooding events, a dead-end job, working for a struggling business. Some things are more difficult than others, but I noticed a theme through all of them, something that was inside me that I could turn to in my time of need: the desire to create — to create something better, to create something beautiful, to make something to hold on to. I found that if I just found that desire and refused to let it go, it was there for me. Always. There was just always something I could work on, some project I could escape into, some idea I could focus my thoughts on that made the other things not at all tolerable — but they couldn’t absolutely destroy me.
While I’ve always struggled to call myself an artist, I’ve never struggled with believing I’m creative. I believe creativity is a human imperative, the same as love and community and procreation. It is something we are born with, the same as heart and lungs. We depend on our creativity to survive, to evolve and to adapt. I hear people say they aren’t creative all the time — but they are always wrong. I hear people say they just aren’t that creative all the time, and they are wrong, 100 percent of the time. Every single person has a creative force within them. But not all forces have been cultivated to grow.
Creativity is like a muscle or an instinct — it needs to work out. It needs to stretch and flex. It needs to be nourished. It needs practice before it can be good. It needs you to survive as much as you need it. I believe setting aside time every day to nurture your creativity is as important as setting aside time each day to sleep, to eat, and to exercise (maybe even more important, if my actual sleeping and eating schedule is any indication). There are huge benefits to increasing one’s creative time — increased production at work, increased problem solving skills and resourcefulness, increased connections with others, having a sense of accomplishment, joy and escapism, improved willingness to experiment, branch out and learn new skills, a desire to have a more open mind and see the world through many lenses. Creative time and thought helps a person discover who they are, who they want to be and where they are going. Creativity is yoga for the brain.
And the thing is, making time for creativity isn’t painful — or at least, it shouldn’t be. You don’t have to be an artist to flex your creative muscles — (though you could always become an artist, with practice.) There are so many ways to add creativity into your life and into your schedule. Here are 7 ways you can resolve to exercise your creative muscles this year. (*They don’t have to be reserved for just one day a week.)
SUNDAYS
Take a photography walk.
Grab your smart phone or your camera and go on a photography walk — whether it’s for four blocks or four miles, take a LOT of photos. Look for things that catch your eye, that catch your sun, that are interesting, or out of place, that are beautiful or strange. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bug, a vintage car, a reflection or a mural. Just really look at things. Stop every 50 feet and look around. Look up at the sky and down at the ground and left and right. And if nothing catches your eye, just keep going — slowly. The turtle wins this race, every time.
Photo: One of the views seen during a photography walk around Austin’s Central Library, a great area in Austin to explore for an hour or more. Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
MONDAYS
Explore your area art museums, studios, artists groups and events.
Explore your area art museums, studios, artists groups and maker events. Take note of what you’re drawn into and what you’re not. Choose at least one piece of art per exploration to ask questions about the way it was made, research the artist more fully, discover other works of art from the same era or category, or study the history of the subject.
Photo: Art enthusiasts browse the exhibition space for Austin-based acrylics artist Lauren Tarbel (one of my favorites) during the East Austin Studio Tour in November. Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
TUESDAYS
Hold your own freemaking time.
Get out the art supplies and dip your hands into them — then just start making something. Grab that first tube of paint or material and find some way to just put it to use, how to put it with something else. Whether you’re coloring, painting, crocheting, sewing, building, scrapbooking, or photo editing — whatever it is you’ve chosen to do — listen to some music or phone a friend and let your mind rest in the moment of repetitious creation. Sometimes a blank canvas can cause a lot of stress, if you don’t know what to put on it, but don’t let that weigh you down. Instead, let the unknown and the indecision and the it be part of the flow. If you’re meant to make something, it will come to you; otherwise, it’s just the stroke or the color or the action itself that is important. The great thing about coloring books is that you really don’t have to have a plan for what you’re trying to make — you’ve already got a template.
Photo: A “Lost and Found” design created through the freemaking process, for no other reason than to stretch my creative muscles outside what I would normally do. Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
WEDNESDAYS
Mid-week journaling.
Mid-week journaling. Take one hour to just sit and write (or type) whatever your mind tells you to write. It doesn’t have to be anything important or special. It’s just about whatever is causing you frustration that day or that week, whatever it is you want to have or to accomplish, whatever questions, problems and solutions have been sitting or hiding or making a ruckus in your brain. Write for the full hour, and at the end of the hour, if there’s anything enlightening, important or that needs further exploring, make a note of it on your calendar, send yourself a text message or put it on a memo.
Photo: Stock from Pixabay.
THURSDAYS
Start learning a new skill
or exploring a new medium.
Tutorials for making pretty much anything with anything abound throughout the Internet — if there’s something you’ve been wanting to try or do, there’s now a way to learn to do it from your living room. You don’t even have to buy supplies at first! Just think of something you’ve never done before, something you’ve always wanted to do, or — if you can’t think of something yourself — something someone you know is passionate about. YouTube, CreativeLive, SkillShare, Udemy and Lynda are just a few of the resources available on the Internet to help people learn new skills and explore different mediums, and many, many of the top artists and makers have their own tutorials and master classes they sell via various websites. If you decide to follow along with a tutorial, NEVER be afraid or upset at failure — failure is the path to success.
Photo: I’m slowly learning to use the free animation software Blender, with the help of tutorials from Udemy and YouTube. Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
FRIDAYS
Play live music —
or go find some.
I am in no way, shape or form a musician (unfortunately) but I’ve still got a steel tongue drum I absolutely love playing for its soft sounds and vibrating waves, and several hand drums that I’ll go crazy with from time to time, especially if another friend is around to flow or “jam” with me. Whether you find an old harmonica, bang on a cardboard box, actually have a guitar laying around, or need to sing, hum, chant or howl at the moon yourself, close your eyes, breathe deeply and use your body as fully as you can to rock out for as long as you can.
Photo: Musicians performing at the 2018 Llano Earth Arts Festival prove you don’t need an expensive instrument to rock out. Copyright Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
SATURDAYS
Get out of your comfort zone.
Go somewhere you’ve never gone before, find a view of the city you’ve never seen before, take a left where you always take a right. Do an activity you would ordinarily not do — not because you’re scared of it, necessarily, but just because it’s outside your routine and outside what you know. Try an escape room instead of your regular bar, visit your favorite park but hike a trail you’ve never been on, take a day trip to the next nearest city and follow the signs on the highway to the nearest tourist trap — and have fun just seeing where you wind up and who you meet.
Photo: Carlsbad Caverns National Park — a whole different world. Copyright Mighty.Beautiful Art Studio
AND KEEP IT GOING!
There are so many more ways to add creativity into your life — things that improve your connection with nature, your mental and physical health, and help guide you on your life journey. Here’s hoping 2019 is your most creative year yet!