The most important lesson...

As many of you know, I set an intention in July to create one piece of artwork every day on my old scraps of paper to nurture my love for creativity and my discipline for showing up for it. What started as a simple challenge ended up turning into the most creatively fulfilling experience I’ve had in a very, very long time. Throughout the month, I rediscovered my love for drawing with ink, created SO many pieces that I absolutely love (and a few that I absolutely don’t 😂), and learned an incredibly important lesson about creativity.

In the beginning, it was a STRUGGLE. The act of showing up for your creativity can be difficult. In the last newsletter, we chatted about the uncertainty of creativity (and if you missed that newsletter, you can read it here). The act of showing up to create is an act of courage, because you have no idea how your art will turn out, if you’ll end up liking it, or if you’ll even enjoy the process at all. As the challenge went on, I started to CRAVE CREATIVITY. I steadily became braver and more excited about showing up for my creative practice. But there were still many days that I wasn’t. Days that my creative energy was down. Days where I felt “too busy” to create. Days dealing with the unexpected loss of a friend, where I just didn’t think I had anything to give to my art practice.

But I showed up anyway.

I had made a commitment to myself to show up for my creativity, and I didn’t want to let myself down. Some days I created something simply to meet my intention. And it was on those “struggle” days that I learned the most important lesson: creativity isn’t about always making something you love 110%. Sometimes it’s simply about showing up to make something. Even when you don’t love the result. Even when you struggled with sketching the pose. Even when you just feel a bit creatively drained.

Whether or not I loved the end result, showing up for my creativity always left me feeling better than I had before going into it. Whether I got to spend 3 hours or 10 minutes, that creative time filled me up and made me excited and grateful to be a creative.

I hope as you head into this new week, you find a few moments of creativity for yourself! I promise you’ll walk away from it with your cup a little fuller and your heart a little lighter.