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Art Teaches Us That Mistakes Happen

Sunday, February 17th, 2008 by Alyice

I’m doing art again and I am loving it! Once I get passed the negative self-talk, it’s rather refreshing and fun. I find that I am enjoying the process and if something doesn’t work out the way I want it to, I can just redo it. I like that. I like the idea of being able to fix my mistakes and I like how it reminds me that not everything is set in stone—that mistakes happen, and changes can be made, and that sometimes, the changes we make because of those mistakes actually makes things turn out better than they would have in the first place.

I am going to try to create something every single day. Whether it’s creating a canvas, painting patterns on paper, altering jars, taking photographs for future projects, crocheting, or scrapbooking, I am going to commit to a minimum of one hour a day to actually “creating” something.

In fact, today I just finished a project for a teenager who lost his dog. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow when I upload the photo…

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What Steals Creativity?

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 by Alyice

In December of 2007 I discovered that I was ready for a new adventure and that I no longer had the desire to spend my days hidden behind a computer screen with no social contact and no creative outlet. Writing had been good to me, but it was all I knew—that, and running the business side of things. I had spent so much time chasing after the next pay day that I had very little time to be creative for the sake of being creative.

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I wanted to finally grab hold of my creative side and make things happen with my photography and my art. But I soon discovered that I had pushed my creativity aside for so long that it had become stifled—smothered under the pressures of life and hidden even from me. Too afraid to venture out into a world of the unknown, too afraid to try and fail, to afraid to give myself creative license, too afraid to start over again—so afraid that I withdrew back into a familiar place; a place I spent years building.

Would I ever find the courage and determination to move forward with my plan? Or would I continue to allow life’s little obstacles to stifle my creativity? Those are questions that have plagued me over the last month and a half.

Every once in a while I would pop my head out from behind the computer screen to read an article, to study a technique, to try my hand at being creative, to dream about starting a new adventure. But those doubts and fears would creep right back in and I’d find myself withdrawing once again to that familiar place behind the computer screen.

What’s stopping me? I’d wondered. What’s preventing me from allowing the creativity to flow again?

I had every reason to believe that stress was the culprit; after all, I’d had nine years of very intense situations manifest themselves one after the other. And with a recent bout of Bell’s Palsy, stress had finally brought me to my breaking point.

But then I read a very interesting article by Douglas Eby about the psychological affects depression has on our creativity and it all clicked. So many deaths in such a short period of time, so many losses with each state-to-state move, so many life and business adjustments, it was more than stress. It was depression.

Life had taken its toll on my creativity and it is time I fight to get it back.

Today I resolve to get back in touch with my creative side by releasing myself from the bondage of stress and depression and committing to a minimum of one hour a day to being creative—or at least making an effort to be creative.

And who knows, maybe by making time to be creative with no expectations of selling the piece, no expectations of receiving rave reviews, and no expectations of liking the piece, I’ll find myself again. And in finding myself, I should be able to let go of the stress, the anxiety, and the depression that linger from time to time.

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New Year, New Dreams

Thursday, December 27th, 2007 by Alyice

I am finally getting off my butt and making something of my dreams to use art and photography together; to use it in such a way that it tells life stories and preserves memories. Yes, I am stepping out on faith this year and I am no longer going to hide behind the “What if I stink?” mentality. Its funny how being creative opens up a whole new world of insecurities.

I have a colleague and dear, dear friend who is a really good photographer and because of her dedication to the craft, I’ve seen her improve her skills each and every year. I’ve seen her go from average photographer to skilled photographer and one day, I am positive I will see her transform into one of those photographers that you just wish you could emulate. But behind her small successes, and praises from a few industry experts, she’s still an insecure photographer who hopes that every client will love her work, that she will capture their true inner beauty, and that she won’t disappoint.

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What makes her different from me? She put her fear aside and went head first! It’s funny really how it all came about. We were both freelance writers: two writers with two different audiences and two different venues for making a living at the craft. One day I told her that I wanted to do more than write, that I had always had a dream of becoming a photographer. She, too, shared the dream.

The more we discussed photography, the more we realized we should turn our desire into a fun hobby, a monthly outing where we simply drove around the state finding neat things and fun places to photograph. A year later, she was in business. A year later, I was still dreaming.

A move out of state ended our monthly photo opps, but her business continued to grow. Another year passed and she quit writing altogether—to focus on photography full time. I, however, still had not stepped out on faith. Last year, I changed the theme of this blog and promised myself to “step out on faith”. But alas, life got in the way: deaths in the family, job lay offs, health issues, you name it, and I did nothing with photography and I did nothing with art. I had simply allowed the dream to escape me.

Then a life altering moment hit me. The right side of my face had become paralyzed and the local doctor feared it was a stroke. An emergency room visit and one CAT scan later, it was determined that I had Bell’s Palsy: a temporary paralysis of my face due to my number 7 nerve deciding to go on vacation.

“What if it were a stroke?” I asked myself. “What if you could never do the things you always dreamed of doing because you constantly put them off because life gets too busy, because you have another business to run, because you are too afraid to put yourself out there for the world to judge?”

I had no answer.

I’ve owned my own business, in one form or another, since 1991. I understand that in order to start a business you have to make sacrifices. I understand that you must crawl before you can leap. I understand that there is a learning curve. I understand that nothing is perfect the first time out. I understand that in order to succeed you must put yourself out there to be criticized, to be judged, and hopefully, to be praised. I’ve experienced this with my writing business. I understand how it works. Yet, I simply found a way to give up before I had even begun.

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Perhaps part of me secretly believed that if I didn’t start this new venture in my life, I’d live forever—that by procrastinating I would have plenty of time to start this next chapter of my life.

But the reality is that it can all be taken away in a heartbeat. Just ask my mother! She died nearly two years ago, having never been able to fulfill her lifelong dreams. When she died, I told myself I would not let that happen to me. I would pursue the dreams that had eluded me all these years.

This Christmas, I broke down and cried. I had a good cry. I didn’t know why I was crying really, but I released the bottled up emotions. Today I realized that some of the tears were for the mother I lost and the second Christmas without her—the first was really a blur. And some of the tears were for me.

Today I realized that I stopped believing in myself as a writer, as a photographer, as an artist, and even as a mother. I stopped moving forward. I was stuck and I allowed myself to stay stuck. And even though I wasn’t going backwards, I wasn’t moving forward. I had stopped dreaming about what could be and what I wanted to do with my creative skills.

Today, it hit me, I am not a quitter. That’s the one thing I could honestly say my mother was VERY proud of when it came to me. I wasn’t a quitter. Life did not hold me back. No matter what happened in my life, no matter how hard it got, no matter what life threw at me, I was not a quitter.

And so today, I decided to move forward, even if it’s just baby steps. So watch out world, this girl is moving forward!

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