The Artist’s Date
Last month I shared with you one of the key pillars of The Artist’s Way - the Morning Pages. This month, I want to introduce the other pillar - as its quite a good way of thinking about opportunities to discover something new, or PLANTING new habits.
The Artist Date is quite simply a chance to take yourself (and your creative spirit) on a date - for inspiration, for surprises, for awe and wonder. It’s a chance to indulge and nourish the your creative energy - the playful and wondering parts of you that get excited, intrigued, beguiled, emotional.
It is any opportunity to open yourself up to a creative moment - allowing in just 5% more creative thinking, being or doing. It might be people watching in a cafe (and wondering about their lives), it might be going on a trip to an art shop to buy a new set of drawing pencils. Next week, your date might be even to take them out and use them! It is a moment in your week when you stop the noise and the demands of everything else - and tune in to your creative potential.
The artist date is the tool most often sidelined! After all, we’re busy shuttling our kids to school and activities, cooking and housework, our careers, our social life, the list goes on.We may see taking nourishing time out for ourselves as frivolous and indulgent, but it’s quite the opposite. Even half an hour a week just for yourself will help to fill your creative cup and energise you in your life and work.This is above all an exercise to reconnect with your playful inner child (remember her?) and connect with joy, fun, lightness.
“In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do - spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.”
An artist’s date might be as bold as a trip to the theatre, a gallery or a gig. It might be something significantly more mundane. The point its, you are actively making time for your creative self - and seeing what happens to the rest of life as you breathe life into that part of you.
Make a list of all the small (or big) activities you might like to do that could constitute an artist’s date - a solo activity (with your creative self) that fills your creative cup. When you are looking for some way to reenergise, feel engaged or stimulated - pluck another artist date and do what you can to arrange it. At the very least, a short walk, noticing the bird song from the trees, or the way the shadows fall, or the temperature on your skin - take a chance to notice the spring as it emerges around us.
At the very least, we’re PLANTING habits that will give you the chance to recharge.
Good luck - and see what unexpected rewards you reap x