Twyla Tharp in her book, The Creative Habit, talks about how helpful it is to establish some rituals - automatic, but decisive patterns of behavior - at the beginning of the creative process when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up or going the wrong way. The ritual erases the question of whether or not you want or like to do it, you just do it.
Do you have any rituals that get you started or can you think of any that might work for you?
I use the kitchen timer, telling myself I will spend 15 minutes on something...and usually I'm enjoying it so much, I spend much longer. But it's a way to get started which is the hardest part.
Cynthia
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm an awful, awful procrastinator and I should learn from everyone who posts here how to overcome it. I always said I work best under pressure but that is really a cop-out for being lazy. When I get really behind or hit a block I do the most off the wall thing....I go shopping at the thrift stores or yard sales....I nearly always find something that inspires me and starts the little wheels moving. It might be a person, the texture of an antique textile, a button or anything that catches my attention. Then when I get home I'm anxious to get started on the inspiration and start pulling things off the shelves and out of the cabinets creating a huge mess...but then, that's another discussion about artist's working in clutter, LOL.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any rituals, but I need some. Time after time, I sit and ponder and worry because I can't come up with "something creative." Finally, I pull out supplies (usually paint) and start playing, and I'm suddenly struck with creative ideas. I always seem to forget that, for me, creativity most often comes to me through my hands when they're working.
ReplyDeleteI recently attended a workshop where the teacher spoke a bit about creativity. She suggested that everyone has something that she responds to more than anything else. For her, it is color. I realized I had never thought about what triggers get me to work and that I should because it's so easy to waste my creative time and end up doing nothing. At first i thought it was browsing my photos and sketchbooks, but then I realized that is just another way to procrastinate actually starting. Doing that gets me excited, and the pictures are definitely a source of inspiration, but that doesn't necessarily lead to actual sewing. OTOH, I'm in the midst of a creative binge right now and think I have a better handle on what got me off the computer and into my fabric. It sorta started with a photograph, but what REALLY got me going was walking over to my stash and starting to pull fabrics. And not just any fabrics. COLORS. So I think I now know something new about myself. MY triggers are color(visual) and fabric (tactile)--in combination. Neither one really does the trick by itself, but together, they grab me.
ReplyDeleteI had been a bit of a rut - granted a few other things came up - but what worked to get me started Art Quilting again was working a few traditional quilts - just the act of cutting fabric sewing together and quilting was enough to jump start my creativity.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I realise I am proctrastinating about a project, or I have got to a place where I am facing a hurdle that is fast becoming a wall. I have found that if I get some audio books from the library and start listening to them, the subconcious can get on with the task at hand.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, when I was trying to work out how I would join the man and lady sides of the bodice on "Midnight Dance By Moonlight" as well as adding a onesided jacket/tailcoat, I spent ages deliberating and thinking it through in the middle of the night. finally I sat down with the audio book and got so involved in listening, the next thing I knew my hands had put all the bits together, and it wasn't as hard as I had thought.
Sandy in the UK
I love the Twyla Tharp book and was wowed by the idea of having a start of the day routine, I don't always do it but when I do it really works. I have two that I use and it really doesn't matter which. One is a fifteen-minute drawing of whatever's nearest to hand - I feel that is what I ought to be doing, anyway, though I'm really glad you asked the question, because it's actually the other that works for me: beginning the day by going up to the studio (on the top floor of the house) and doing something: it could be working on a project, getting stuff ready to go, looking through sketchbooks, whatever. It works best when I do this before I even get dressed: the significant things is getting started on something - means I can think about it all through the first thing in the morning routines and because I can't wait to get back to it deals with the procrastination problem...
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that most of us struggle with the same problem - procrastination. For me a little check list gets me started. It could be just a note to start a sketch for a project, or to select fabrics or anything that gets me off the mark and gets me moving. Sometimes its just going up to my studio to "clean up" gets me in the right place to start playing and creating. It's really odd that I would procrastinate on things I really love to do, but it happens a lot.
ReplyDeleteI also procrastinate, I work better with deadlines (usually), and I have found I don't do well with "self" imposed ones. That said I have one habit I need to break, reading,if I start reading then I will get almost nothing done. Very annoying, as I then get mad at myself. Course right now I am back in school so setting up new habits isn't really possible, not with the homework I am going to be faced with.
ReplyDeleteI find a finishing ritual more effective than a starting ritual. The last step in every project is a thorough "tidy up" of the studio. Once everything is in its place and the floor swept, I feel I have permission to start something new.
ReplyDeleteI get ideas from everywhere. Usually going for a long walk works, I come home full of bright ideas. Not that they are all carried through, but at least some 'food for thought' happens on those walks.
ReplyDelete