In Process
Shedding our protective creative layers. + A creative winter workshop series!
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Hello friends,
How are we doing focusing on our practice this month?
You may remember that the last time I wrote to you, I advocated for January to be an in-between month. Not a month of production, or beginnings, but a month of percolating, ruminating, marinating.
If you’re working at doing this yourself: how is it going for you?
I’m currently at a three-week art residency. That creates a very particular container for the in-between month: three whole weeks for me to use as I see fit. Time away from my usual space and routine, a devoted chunk of time to be in process.
I have an enormous studio space and a block of time. This of course feels incredibly luxurious, and I am grateful for it. But that doesn’t necessarily make it straightforward.
It’s easy to assume that a wide open space—a physical and mental spaciousness—is the ideal setting for creative work. In many ways, it is! Which is exactly why residencies were created in the first place: to give people time to sit with their ideas, to create space for uninterrupted creative work.
To think that this is the only way that creative work gets done is an illusion. We can fit creativity into the tiniest pockets if that’s all we have available. While luxurious, seemingly limitless space and time also come with their own constraints.
When there’s an enormous empty physical studio space, you wonder how you will fill it up. You wonder if you are deserving to have this amount of space. What can you make that will do justice to this space? What if you just mess around for three weeks and have nothing to show for it? What if you don’t do anything?
If you wonder for too long, then you easily block yourself. Instead of feeling spacious and expansive, it can feel oppressive, overwhelming. You end up with Blank Page Syndrome.
And what about all that empty and open mental space, when you’ve managed to clear the decks to open yourself to being a vessel for the creative muse? That’s when the temptation quickly arises to fill it.
To sit in that empty, unknown space can feel quite jarring. It’s easier to opt for a book, or a film, or a podcast, or anything else that might pull our mind away from that concentration. Much more tempting to cross a book off of our reading list than letting the mind wander around aimlessly.
Trust me, I’ve read two books this past week, which was against the advice of a good friend who said to me right before I left, “what if you went to your residency and didn’t read anything?” His point was that I read all the time—what if I had the space to simply come up with things on my own, without resources, without references?
The thought was too uncomfortable, too big, and I didn’t feel up to the task (at least not yet). Plus I love reading, and dark January nights are good for books.
This is all to say: the practice of letting January be an in-between month is easier said than done. It’s difficult to remove and shed the heavy layers of expectation of production and output and instead sit with ourselves and our ideas.
The temperature dropped to significant lows this week (way below anything we’re used to in the PNW) and I had to bundle up when I went outside this morning. A black wool baselayer, a striped wool sweater, a down jacket, a handknit beanie pulled down tight over my ears, wool gloves. Protective layers against the cold.
Output and production, so revered by our culture, are also a form of protective layering—helping to insulate ourselves against the unknown, against the potential expansiveness of our own selves.
Those layers give us something to point to, something to show, something tangible to share. They give us a format that we know works. They provide accolades and acknowledgement.
To commit to being in process, to be in this in-between space, is to choose to slowly shed them.
We peel them off, layer by layer. Some we’re happy to remove, and others, we’d prefer to keep on.
We keep removing until we are left in nothing in our own skin.
We stand there in the cold. Exposed. Bare. Vulnerable.
Just before sunrise, the sky was covered in deep winter blue and yellow. I had decided to take a dip in the water. The shortest and quickest dip I’ve taken this season, overly cautious of the windchill, and wishing I had magical socks that would put themselves on over cold wet toes.
I think I crave the cold winter water because it feels raw and exposed. With all the layers removed—ok there’s a swimsuit layer and maybe some neoprene booties or gloves—you are left in an incredibly vulnerable state. How you survive is entirely up to you and your own capacities, your own attention to the surroundings, your own listening to your body’s limits and needs. Opting out is always an option, a sign of awareness and respect for the elements.
But on the days when the elements abide, this here—this moment entirely submerged in the cold—is the moment when I feel like my truest self.
Nothing to hide behind, nothing to insulate. Only the clarity of cold.
It’s a freeing state to be in. It feels wild and uninhibited. With all the layers peeled away I am left with a micro-moment of intense lucidity. Everything is clear and bright and pure.
The moment does not last for long, less so on colder days when the time in the water is drastically reduced. It’s brief, momentary, then quickly back to shore to shed the wet layers and don the wool ones. Cold fingers pulling on tights and socks. Grasping a mug of hot tea.
The cold is only tolerable because it’s chosen, voluntary. There’s the promise of warmth on the other side.
With the layers back on, there’s a residual chill in the body. Sometimes I feel an inkling of it a few hours later. A glimmer in the bloodstream and the extremities.
It is a practice of navigating extremes, opposites, contrasts.
It is not a practice defined by minutes or personal records or bests.
It is a practice of being in process.
Of shedding the layers for a moment of expansiveness.
-Anna
CREATIVE FUEL UPDATE!
Because this is an in-between month, I am letting things be a little fluid in this newsletter. No set schedule, no absolutes. Which means the usual paid subscriber perk Weekend Edition is on pause for the time being… but I’ve got a fun seasonal offering coming down the line: a creative workshop series!
Creativity, much like cold water plunging, is a practice of opposites, of holding two things at once, of constantly trying to navigate towards a balance. With that in mind, I’ve been working with Sabrina of to put together a 2-part creative series in February called The Harmony of Opposites.
This is an offering for paid subscribers, and if you want to register you’ll find more info below.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
All of my upcoming workshops are listed here. There are two that I specifically wanted to put on your radar today.
—> January 20, 2024: Fostering Creativity, an Exploration of Creative Process, 10am to 12:30pm PT
I'm excited to be kicking off Art Toolkit's virtual winter workshop series next Saturday. We will be focusing on taking this regenerative season as a starting point for learning how to foster our own creativity and set the tone for the months ahead. Tickets + info.
—> February 11+18, 2024: The Harmony of Opposites Creative Workshop Series 10-11:30am PT
In this two-part series led in collaboration with by Sabrina Y. Smith
we’ll dive into two seemingly opposite themes—Light & Shadow and Movement & Stillness—to find balance in our creative practice. You’ll find additional information on the class page.This is an offering for paid subscribers of either Creative Fuel or Seven Senses, please register at the link below.
If you are already a paid subscriber of Seven Senses please click here.