Documenting my creative recovery.
May 3 – May 9
Recovering a sense of Strength
“This week tackles another major creative block: time. You will explore the ways in which you have used your perception of time to preclude taking creative risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate the early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.”
Week 8 Tasks
1. Goal Search
This one feels a bit personal, like I’m not sure I’m ready to share it yet? But nobody reads this blog anyways…
She says that if we come up with multiple dreams, to do this task for each of them.
Dream One: To live as an artist
- My dream
- To make a living selling art I’ve chosen to create, through writing, ceramics and paintings. To be happy and healthy as I do, of course, spending time with loved ones.
- One concrete goal that signals accomplishment
- Painting: I’d know that I’m moving towards my dream when one day I’m able to pay, say, a week of rent by selling a painting. Eventually growing to more, such as a month, then three months, then half a year? Maybe a whole year of rent? Imagine!!
- Comics: I’d know that I’m moving towards my dream if people are drawing/dressing as my characters! So sweet. A dream I’ve had ever since I was a teenager, as I drew other people’s characters constantly, and was thinking of dressing up as anime and cartoon characters! It lets me know that people actually enjoy my comic, enjoy the world I’m building, and might want to read more that I make!
- Writing: The first time I publish a book and it’s up on a shelf somewhere? Or on a website where I get my first order!
- Ceramics: A stranger choosing to buy a piece that I’d made would just be amazing.
- In a perfect world, where am I in five years?
- I am working for myself, I am working on my own projects
- In this world, what action can I take this year to move closer to this reality?
- Paint consistently enough to begin finding my story and style.
- Write enough to strengthen my storytelling skills and build confidence.
- What action can I take this month? This week? This day? Right now?
- I can continue to work on the plot plan / rough draft of my book!
- Make an action plan; five years, three years, one year, one month, one week, now. Choose an action.
- Five years
- Working for myself, creating art and stories full time. Selling paintings, books, comics, ceramics, making enough from my work to comfortably support my life. Having a strong style and world that people recognise and connect with.
- Three years
- A consistent body of work online. A finished comic or book project out in the world. A small audience that genuinely follows what I make and looks forward to new work. Ideally selling prints, paintings, or ceramics regularly.
- One year
- A stronger understanding of my visual style, storytelling, and creative voice. A proper routine for painting and writing. A draft completed for my book. Sharing more work publicly instead of keeping it to myself.
- One month
- Spend consistent time each week painting and writing. Build references, ideas, and sketches without overthinking perfection. Continue developing the plot and characters of my comic/book.
- One week
- Finish a small piece; painting, writing scene, or character concept. Study artists and stories that inspire me and take notes on what I actually like about them.
- Now
- Open the document, sketchbook, or canvas and keep working instead of waiting to feel “ready.”
- Five years
2. A fantasy childhood
3. First-person colours
I am Ultra-violet. I am your psychedelic visions, the colour of your most magnetic dreams, an invisible energy that powers your whole world.
4. Five things you’re not allowed to do
- I’m not allowed to quit my job and only create art and have my boyfriend be the breadwinner
- I’m not allowed to keep my art tools and work-in-progress spread out in the house
- I’m not allowed to move to the Philippines and live by the beach with yaya looking after the house
- I’m not allowed to play video games all day long!
- I’m not allowed to force my boyfriend to solve an escape room with me…
5. List twenty things you like to do
I like to take photos
- Does it cost money or is it free? It costs money for new paper and ink but you don’t have to buy it too often.
- Expensive or cheap? Cheap! I print and trim them at home.
- Alone or with somebody? Ideally with somebody! Because I want to capture memories, so I’d like to be sharing it with others either during or after once I’ve printed the photos!
- Job related? Nope
- Physical risk? None at all
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to make visual art
- Does it cost money or is it free? It’s free with the basic tools and supplies I currently have. But ideally I upgrade my supplies when I can.
- Expensive or cheap? Upgraded supplies are between affordable and expensive. Never very cheap for quality.
- Alone or with somebody? Honestly, to get into a flow state, I’d have to do art alone.
- Job related? Not currently! My work is very corporate so I don’t like to share my very expressive and vulnerable self with them.
- Physical risk? Nah.
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to design magazines
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money eventually to be able to print lots of copies for my family.
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive! Nothing crazy but it’d be crazy to some people what I end up spending on these magazines.
- Alone or with somebody? I make it alone, its about many people and the outcome is for everybody <3
- Job related? Well for work I design books as well, but I have this personal project magazine that I enjoy much more!
- Physical risk? Only a small stab from binding the books. And my aching back from sitting so long haha.
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to journal
- Does it cost money or is it free? It’s free, as long as I have pages in my journal and ink in my pens.
- Expensive or cheap? Cheap!
- Alone or with somebody? I love to journal at the same time as Baz is writing as well, it’s more fun even though we’re not really sharing what we’re writing! Feels like we’re sharing our focused energy.
- Job related? Nope!
- Physical risk? None
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind and spirit
I like to play video games
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money I’d say
- Expensive or cheap? Hmm can be both! Depends on the game
- Alone or with somebody? I usually play alone, but I love to play with others.
- Job related? No but my manager and I do talk about games a lot and it’s very humorous to me.
- Physical risk? Yeah my lack of movement lol I want a walking pad!!
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to complete jigsaw puzzles
- Does it cost money or is it free? Cost money
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive for nice puzzles
- Alone or with somebody? Always alone but I wish it was with somebody.
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? Again my back
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind and spirit,l in that it’s calming and meditative.
I like to have a nice wardrobe
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money! I just want to upgrade my wardrobe but it’s a challenge.
- Expensive or cheap? Depends on the quality
- Alone or with somebody? With somebody would be nice!
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? None
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind and spirit!
I like to have cocktails
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive honestly
- Alone or with somebody? With somebody please!
- Job related? Nope
- Physical risk? Yes my organs
- Fast-paced or slow? Hmm?
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind? not sure
I like to swim / play in water
- Does it cost money or is it free? Can be free!
- Expensive or cheap? Cheap most of the time
- Alone or with somebody? Either is fine! With somebody makes me think of playing like a child again.
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? Yes if I forget to breathe
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow?
- Mind, body or spiritual? Body
I like to visit my family
- Does it cost money or is it free? Only cost is time (I have an electric car)
- Expensive or cheap? Cheap!
- Alone or with somebody? With my family, duhh
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? Nope
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind and spirit
I like to write stories
- Does it cost money or is it free? It’s free
- Expensive or cheap? Cheap
- Alone or with somebody? Alone! I’m shy at the moment about my stories. I feel silly as soon as I start to tell someone the premise of my story.
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? None
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind and spirit
I like to have cute purses
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive for good quality or fun design
- Alone or with somebody? Alone?
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? None
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to do ceramics
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money!
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive in materials, tools and time! And you have to hope what you make doesn’t crumble in the kiln.
- Alone or with somebody? Both would be fine! Like I say, alone is great for focus, with someone is great for joy.
- Job related? Not yet
- Physical risk? None
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to go bouldering
- Does it cost money or is it free? Costs money
- Expensive or cheap? Expensive I’d say
- Alone or with somebody? With somebody!
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? Yes… quite scary to be up high and have to jump down. And I scrape my knees and fingers often.
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Body
I like to sing
- Does it cost money or is it free? Free
- Expensive or cheap? Girl, it’s free!
- Alone or with somebody? Alone!!
- Job related? No
- Physical risk? No
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind?
I like to organise
- Does it cost money or is it free? Uh costs money
- Expensive or cheap? Usually cheap or even free, but sometimes you need to spend on furniture.
- Alone or with somebody? Alone
- Job related? Sometimes!
- Physical risk? Not really
- Fast-paced or slow? Slow
- Mind, body or spiritual? Mind
I like to
- Does it cost money or is it free?
- Expensive or cheap?
- Alone or with somebody?
- Job related?
- Physical risk?
- Fast-paced or slow?
- Mind, body or spiritual?
I like to
- Does it cost money or is it free?
- Expensive or cheap?
- Alone or with somebody?
- Job related?
- Physical risk?
- Fast-paced or slow?
- Mind, body or spiritual?
I like to
- Does it cost money or is it free?
- Expensive or cheap?
- Alone or with somebody?
- Job related?
- Physical risk?
- Fast-paced or slow?
- Mind, body or spiritual?
I like to
- Does it cost money or is it free?
- Expensive or cheap?
- Alone or with somebody?
- Job related?
- Physical risk?
- Fast-paced or slow?
- Mind, body or spiritual?
From this list, I see things I’m currently doing easily, some things I’m working on weaving into my life, and a few others that I’d like to start weaving in.
Some things are integral to my identity and expression but are hard to make real with financial restrictions, such as a nice wardrobe, but, I could start it slowly right? Like really define my dream wardrobe?
6. Plan a perfect day in your life as your world is now. With previous task answers in mind.
Well, I already dilly-dally my freelance work and spread it all through the day… I think it’s time that I compress it to one lump instead, let’s have a look;
7:00am
Wake and get up. I let myself feel pretty and get dressed in cute and comfy home clothes.
7:15am
Get my chores done; throw on the laundry, empty the dishwasher and wipe the counter, reset the lounge and study so the house is tidy and pleasant.
8:00am
Make a light breakfast, maybe a fresh fruity bowl and iced coffee.
8:30am
I’ll finish my morning pages as I finish my coffee.
9:30am
Mid-morning, I start my freelance work, when my focus is strongest.
1:00pm
I make lunch and eat it as I finish up my freelance work just after lunch.
2:00pm
Afterwards, I take my dog on a big walk to decompress.
2:30pm
Then I spend the afternoon doing creative work or on myself. I might paint, journal, or write, I might do my artist date, or finish up some errands.
4:30pm
Then late afternoon, I’ll jump on the PlayStation and play on my own or with someone. Stopping in time to start dinner!
6:30pm
We make dinner, have a meal as a family.
7:30pm
After dinner we turn off the TV and go back to doing creative things, like writing, or mixing music, or painting. We spend time both being creative.
9:30pm
Then finally it’s time to rest, time to watch something as we settle for bed.
10:30pm
Sleep promptly at 10:30pm!
7. Plan a perfect day in your life in your ideal world. Anything your heart desires, describe your ideal environment, job, home, friends, relationship, status, stature in your art form, your wildest dreams.
My ideal world, so many things would be different but also not really too different? I don’t know the exact schematics, but let’s just write it!!
7:00am
Wake and get up. I let myself feel pretty and get dressed in cute and comfy home clothes.
7:30am
I make a light breakfast, with a small portion of fresh fish along with my fruity breakfast and iced coffee.
8:00am
I’ll finish my morning pages as I finish my coffee.
9:00am
Mid-morning, I get into my studio where I get started on my more serious creative work, such as work that will pay the bills, this might be writing, or painting big paintings, or ceramic work. The mornings are when I have the most focus and momentum and get into a great flow.
1:00pm
For my lunch, either I get brought some to my studio, or Baz and I go out together for our little lunch break!
2:00pm
I’ll again decompress and walk Lola before moving onto the next thing.
2:30pm
Now I move into more personal and chill work, such as a personal painting, or journaling.
4:30pm
Then late afternoon, I’ll jump on the PlayStation and play on my own or with someone. Stopping in time to start dinner!
6:30pm
We have dinner, have a meal as a family.
9:30pm
Then finally it’s time to rest, time to watch something as we settle for bed.
10:30pm
Sleep promptly at 10:30pm!
8. Choose one aspect from ‘your perfect day in your life as your world is now’, allow yourself to live it.
I’ve decided to sort of live that ideal day! it’s going okay, I do spend a lot of time for myself in the afternoons now, it’s quite pleasant.
Early pattern-ings, an exercise
Julia provided a list of sentences where I need to fill in the blanks! Here we go!
- As a kid, my dad thought my art was something to encourage. That made me feel eager to impress.
- I remember one time when he told me they were happy for me to go to animation school, despite it not being the most professional or secure path to take.
- I felt very secure and supported about that. I never forgot it.
- As a kid, my mother taught me that my daydreaming was great for imagination.
- I remember she’d tell me to snap out of it by reminding me that there are chores to do if I’m “bored” and looking for something to do!
- The person I remember who believed in me was Marcos Stegall.
- I remember one time when he encouraged me to tell my story when I was trying to back away from it.
- I felt pleasantly surprised and supported about that. I never forgot it.
- The thing that ruined my chance to be an artist was not completing animation school. ( don’t like this one, there is a lot of life left to live, lots of chances left! nothing to blame, time will pass)
- The negative lesson I got from that, which wasn’t logical but I still believe, is that I can’t live life at my pace and be an artist.
- When I was little, I learnt that _ and _ were big sins that I particularly had to watch out for.
- I grew up thinking artists were lucky people.
- The teacher who shipwrecked my confidence was my this one english teacher from pakuranga college!.
- I was told (not told with words, but with action) as she put my essay last on the pile (VERY clearly in order of best essay to worst) that I was not capable of writing. And even if not many others might have even noticed, it was humiliating to teenage-me.
- I believed this teacher because I got low scores, I believed it. I skipped speeches, I avoided words I couldn’t spell, I shrivelled small when tests came. She showed me I was the dumbest so I thought it true and when I tried to be better, I couldn’t do it (because I was doing it alone), so I just lived it, I stopped trying.
- The mentor who was a good role model was my Dad.
- I’ve never really defined a role model before, I had to really ask what that even was. I’ve been really admiring my dad recently, because of the way he’s been connecting more intentionally with us. When we were growing up, he’d do acts of service as his way of saying he loves us, always working on the house or working for the house. And now that we’re older, he’s been so sweet, playing zombie games with us just to spend time with us “kids”, getting us all to take photos together on our little cameras, making a Facebook group to share them in, and making videos of the trips he and Mom take together. I admire that he finds time for it all, that he expresses himself, loves his family, and works hard with a balance of self love and selflessness. brb crying
- When people say I have talent I think they want to be polite and don’t really think much of an artist’s path (so I stop myself from talking in case embarrass myself).
- The thing is, I am suspicious that I need to have succeeded to call myself an artist.
- I just can’t believe that I’m meant to be anything other than an artist.
- If I believe I am really talented, then I am mad as hell at capitalism for making it hard to live without the stress of income, and the patriarchy for building the world around the harsh masculine instead of the gentle feminine, and the lotto for not letting us win, and that english teacher, and ai prompters who are bleeding into authentic art scenes.
Wow that Pakuranga college teacher I spoke about, I now really realise how much that particular day really affected me. For a long, long time I would say that I was bad at writing, that I’m not a writer, that other people can write my words for me. That I was bad at words, bad at focusing, bad at studying. I was the bottom of the pile, so why bother? I was only 14, a year younger than everyone else.
Now in hindsight, I realise that kind of added to my study-downfall, I struggled with school more than I already was; I was skipping classes, practically failing every test, I hardly graduated high school. Then I continued, I was failing university, it took me how many years extra to finally complete my Bachelor.
But thanks to my university lecturer, Marcos, who I had for my final year of university, for believing in me. He believed in my ability to tell my story, to write something meaningful. After just over 10 years of not believing I was capable of much at all, someone was able to convince me that I was. And now I know that it’s true, that I am capable.
This was an incredible exercise. If you’re thinking of just breezing through it or skipping it, don’t!
Week 8 check-in
The Artist’s Way has questions for me to answer specifically in my check ins, let me answer them now!
How many pages did I keep up with in my morning pages? Yes!! Has been so incredible this week. I decided to try out writing for my story in it, and it’s been amazing in terms of finding new thoughts and better ideas! Been loving it.
Did I do my artist date this week? Girl, honestly Baz and I do more things than before we started this course, we don’t often do things alone, we’ve decided to call these things we do our artist dates regardless!! We went to a home that was for sale, and after defining our dreams more and more clearly each day, it was hard not to fall in love. But our finances aren’t ready for it, but our eyes have been opened. There are opportunitires out there that we can reach where we thought there were none. And now our eyes feel more opened, we’re motivated knowing that it is possible to own a house one day.
I’m reminded that God is generous, God is present. We must be open to his gifts and to be able to recieve them, we must be standing firmly and ready. So, we’ve learnt that we need to better prepare ourselves, so when opportunities show up answering our prayers, we’ll be in a position to reach out for them!
Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it? Being shown this house… I’ve been writing about dream houses, describing them, imagining them. But I never really knew how I’d ever come across any home at all that we could buy anytime soon. And here suddenly was a house that a normal couple like us with very little savings might be able to afford (had we had just a bit more!). This home was a wild reminder that the world never stops, opportunities might come along at the wrong time, but the world will never run out of opportunities for you.
Were there any issues significant for my recovery?
Let me show you this insane house! An entire house for sale in Onehunga for $500,000 NZD. I won’t show you the outside for privacy and respect for the owner! A stand alone house, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two-car garage, big fenced in back yard, a sunroom. There was nothing wrong with it structurally, no leaks, no mould, no nothing and the neighbourhood was developed and nice.
The only downside was that it was used in organised crime as a grow house… The police rammed in and raided the place! Was quite shocking to see! No wonder the woman wasn’t keen to be there to show us around, it’s probably heartbreaking to see the house like this, and infuriating. She told us that she had originally lived there. All the wrecked gear and strewn materials, it was insane to walk around and imagine how it had gone down.
But its honestly it’s just some junk to throw out and some dirty carpets to deep clean, and a couple of holes in the wall. If you look past that, the house is so nice.
I really fell inlove while we viewed it, I could see past it all and saw this beautiful home. I could tell that the owner had really cared for it before renting it out, I felt awful that she was taken advantage of like that.
But unfortunately, even with that low price, we aren’t able to go for it. But, like I say, our eyes are opened. Insane opportunities come along sometimes, and we shouldn’t close ourselves from any possibility.
If I could put out there into the wild world, if my fairy god mother could please lend me enough for a down payment on this house, please please please!
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