For the past few days, I’ve had trouble getting down to creating. Why? I could say I haven’t a clue but really I do know at least part of the reason. What I’m talking about is distractions. Like email. Like eating. Like grocery shopping. Like laundry. Like email. Like googling some news I heard about. Like exercise. Like email.

 

It’s also excuses. Like I don’t have the right paint colour. Or it’s too dark to paint. It’s too light to paint. It’s too cold in my studio. I don’t know what to paint. I have too many worries right now. I don’t have enough time right now.

 

It’s fear. Fear that I’m not going to produce something worthwhile. Fear that I will waste that piece of expensive paper. Fear of, I don’t know, just stuff. It’s crazy really.

 

And it happens most when I am not stuck into a project or deep into painting.

 

My solution is going to the studio on a daily basis. Showing up. Establishing the discipline of being there. Even if it’s just to read art books, ponder art in progress, gesso canvases.

 

Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.

~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

And I am trying to do this, to get in the habit of turning up. But some days, like the last two, I go in the studio knowing I have a limited time (because of other commitments) and find I only putz about. Then anxiety rises that I am just puttering which in turn holds me back from doing something, anything, which in turn produces another anxiety that comes from not creating.

 

You don’t get into the mood to create – it’s discipline.

~ Twyla Tharp

 

Finally, today, I’d had enough. No more distractions, excuses or fear. So I grabbed a pencil and paper, set up a small mirror and spent some minutes (15? 20?) sketching my face. And you know what was amazing? Just doing that one small thing eased my stress and I thought YES, I’m doing what I’m meant to do. After that it was easy to allow myself to do other things, this blog for instance, without the disquiet that grows from not “acting like an artist”. I told you it was crazy.

 

Anyway, here’s what I did.

 

 

It’s not an accurate or measured drawing but rather a spontaneous reaction to what I saw in the mirror. Just the act of putting pencil to paper, making a mark, going through the act of looking, brought enormous fulfillment far greater in proportion to the time spent and to the success of the outcome.

 

The lesson? Doing is far more satisfying than thinking about doing, than worrying about doing or not doing, than the result of the doing.

 

You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at.

~ W. H. Auden

 

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

~ Pablo Picasso

 

What are your thoughts about discipline, about fear, about distractions, about procrastination?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

Thanks for listening 🙂

 

Until next time,

 

~ Gail

 

 

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways. 

~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr