Category Archives: painting

creative hesitation Mid winter Monday afternoon here in Minnesota. Often this looks like an afternoon nap. But I have had these creative items that are still in a gift bag calling my name. Now at time this sounds like ‘emily come and play,’ but at other times these fresh art supplies can sound more like actual name calling, ‘na na nana naa naa, you can’t catch me - you wouldn’t know what to do with me if you tried!!’ I decide to go with the first voice and move towards the bag. I feel the creative hesitation beginning. The stuck place is coming and I already dread the failure that will follow. What to paint - where is everything I would want to use - and really - again - what will I paint on the canvas? This is all the further I normally get - but this new accountability I have with friends is giving me a needed push. I just start moving toward assuming an idea will come. The drop cloth is in the garage. Get that in place. Smooth it out a bit more to buy my imagination more time. I sit, coffee not hot enough, 22 seconds in the microwave, sip, page through a magazine. Nothing. Then I realize, the mood isn’t right. A thought pops in my head - I always feel real creative in Anthropologie - so I grab a candle from there and light it. I hear Mr. C still babbling in his crib yet to fall asleep- so there is still time to get paint on a brush. I really like the yellow on the candle. Bing. I go in the kitchen and grab an old yellow plate. I love yellow and grey lately. Hmmm...silverware? So I play and realize this could be something to go off of.... So if I want to feel any satisfaction of completion - I need to move on this. I start painting with yellow and am enjoying myself. The first fork looks more like a rake, I do it over. I notice my mind is quite blank, dare I say quiet, yet not bored. Intersting combination that I don’t experience often. I wonder if this new quiet is because my brain shut down the noisey thoughts in order to be creative? Now that would be an added bonus. So I got here this time. I painted. Do I like the result? Parts of it I do like. Both the yellow and lack of clean lines has a friendly feel. That is fun. Will I hang them under my kitchen cubboards to give that space some life? Will I add more detail or age them a bit? Not sure yet. Just really enjoyed getting some color on canvas with the strokes of a brush. So this little push with friends seems to tie in with the word hesitation. I’ve thought that it is my fear that causes me to hesitate from being creative. Fearing I’ll sit, get discouraged and nothing will come. But is it really that the creativity is there waiting and it takes some accountability or some kind of push for me to show up to it? As one who calls herself a non-finisher (more name-calling) I am considering that for today, these are finished. All in a naptime. Oh, that is except for getting everything cleaned up. It’s those kind of details that tend to get me. Therefore the after naptime photo.