Make January an in-between month
Creativity is cyclical and we need a time to hibernate, marinate, percolate.
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Here we are, winding down the first week of January.
I get the sense that more and more of us are frustrated by the restrictions that resolutions and an obsession with fresh starts put on us. Or maybe I am the only one to be surrounded by people who are exhausted by the demands of a culture obsessed with productivity and hustle? Ah ok, maybe not just me.
There are whispers everywhere of people resisting the need for absolutist resolutions and clean slate beginnings—we’re opting for something a little more gradual, a little more graceful, a little gentler. Forget whispers. Mostly we’re shouting into the void: “Hello, it’s still winter, is this really the time for all this grandiose newness? Could I just get a few more days off please?”
As
wrote on the first day of this year:After going all year not deciding that we’ll finally begin saving more money, being kinder to our elderly relatives, giving money to charity, toning our arms, learning to play pickleball or do macrame, planning our divorces, drinking less (or more), spending more time in nature, etcetera, we tell ourselves that, sure, the dead of winter is when we’ll finally pull off dreams we claimed to have no time or energy for last spring, when all the flowers were blooming and butterflies were practically landing right on our heads. None of it makes a bit of sense.
Yes, exactly.
I wrote recently about the need for the midwinter season of creativity, and mentioned that I like to treat January as an in-between month. A liminal space between the old and the new.
But what does an in-between month actually look like?
For starters, I try not to say yes to anything big (as much as this is possible) and I try not to hit the “start” button on any new projects. I try to avoid my usual tendency to think of some new thing and immediately start sprinting with it. I try to sit with things a little longer. I try not to overcommit myself.
In other words, it’s not a month of launching, it’s a month of ruminating. A month to hibernate, marinate, percolate.
That doesn’t mean that aren’t new beginnings. There are plenty of them! But I try to remove the pressure that they need to build to anything, be anything. Some scribbles in a notebook there, some percolating ideas there. It’s a month for allowing half-baked ideas to stay half-baked for just a little longer, to remove the pressure of needing to make any concrete decisions about them, or making a plan for how to bring them into the world.
As much as possible, I try to make this a month of practice, not of production.
For the last few years I have done Yoga with Adriene’s 30-Days of Yoga. To my surprise, I actually started on the launch day this year, but in years past I’ve often come to it a few days in—a good reminder that a new year, a new project, a new endeavor can start on whatever day you damn please.
This year I’ve also been doing
’s 30-day drawing habit on , which I highly recommend if you’re wanting a way to just get back into a creative flow. Again, you know what is a good day to start? Today.
What I like about both of these is that they encourage a practice. They are not built around huge goals or resolutions to be better, they are centered on one question: what happens if you continue to show up?
A practice is a commitment to continuing to return to something.
I picked up Ross Gay’s The Book of (More) Delights: Essays from the library last week, reminding myself of the power of a practice of delight in this midwinter season. If you have read the original The Book Of Delights, you’ll know that Gay gave himself a list of guidelines for his practice that resulted in the first book: write a delight every day for a year, write them by hand, and draft them quickly. As he notes in the introduction to The Book of (More) Delights, he was at an art residency when he wrapped up that first book and his friend asked if he was planning on continuing to write delights.
“It hadn’t occurred to me before he said it. I had been thinking of the book as a kind of one-off. Besides, I had other projects I was working on, excited to get to. At the same time, the yearlong project I had just completed felt like it would be a useful, fun, and unpredictable lifelong project, so I eventually decided every five years would be right.”
Of course, Gay’s practice resulted in a tangible end product, a book. But that practice has inspired many to take on their own version, whether that’s documenting or simply observing those moments of delight. A practice of paying attention, of observing, of existing.
Creative midwinter is a ripe time for planting seeds like this, because while we can use this in-between month as a moment to breathe, a moment to percolate on things, it doesn’t mean not doing anything. Just like rest does not solely mean sleeping and taking naps (although, how nice does that sound?), creative rest doesn’t mean putting all the supplies aside and taking a break. It means expanding the definition of what creative practice looks like.
Making art is one component of that, but so is reading, going on walks, staring out the window, having a conversation, looking at how clouds appear in the January sky, investigating how the form of a plant looks in the depths of winter. Anything that refuels the creative tanks and feels restorative.
A period of creative rest is a moment where the pressure is off, where there is space to dabble and experiment, where there is room to feel like a beginner, where there there is a call to dig a little deeper into those ideas and inklings that were pushed to the backburner when you were busy with other things. A moment where you give yourself the space to be.
It’s an excellent time for returning to—or gently easing into—a practice, whatever that looks like to you. If you’re considering treating January as an in-between month, here is a reframe: instead of asking “what am I going to make?” or “what am I going to produce?” shifting to a more open-ended “how am I going to practice?”
Just so we’re clear, if you are someone who runs your own business and your livelihood is tied to your creative work, this is difficult.
Coming off a busier, more abundant season, it’s not particularly straightforward to settle into this more fallow, sparse time. The permission you must grant yourself in order to experiment, in order to work on things without an end goal, in order to go at a slower pace, can be hard to come by.
You don’t sit on the couch reading a book thinking, “I feel super chill about not having a lot going on right now!” You wonder if projects will land, you question how the year ahead of you will go. You look at the bank account and think, “what if no one ever hires me/buys art/signs up for a workshop ever again?” These might be irrational thoughts—challenged by how you know the cycle of creative work to ebb and flow throughout the year—but they’re very present.
That means that this period can feel scratchy, fidgety, uncertain. We begin to wonder if we’re just wandering aimlessly. We start craving direction.
The weather doesn’t help. January sulks in the corner, with its gray days and moods. The fresh face of a new year wears off quickly, replaced by a more sullen demeanor.
Which means that treating January as an in-between month is itself a practice.
It requires commitment, it requires diligence.
It requires acknowledging that we must take our creative rest as seriously as we take our creative work. That down or slower periods are not wasted periods.
Above all, it requires knowing that every day has the potential for the start of something new.
-Anna
INSPIRATION FROM THE ARCHIVES
A few things you might enjoy going back to in this in-between month, especially if you’re new here!
WINTER SHOP SALE
I’m trying to clear out my studio to make room for all those good things that will inevitably come into the world after an in-between month, so my 2024 Postcard Calendar and 2024 Lunar Calendar are both on sale right now as well as some assorted prints and cards too.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
January 20, 2024: Fostering Creativity, an Exploration of Creative Process, 10am to 12:30pm [VIRTUAL]
I'm excited to be kicking off Art Toolkit's virtual winter workshop series. 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 6, 2024: Papercutting Birds, 6-8pm PT [VIRTUAL]
In honor of the National Nordic Museum's new exhibit Søren Solkær: Sort Sol, we're doing a whole class devoted to papercutting various birds. A perfect class for beginners and experienced papercutters alike. Tickets + info.
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Waving at you from the other side of one of the millions of screens playing Yoga with Adrienne for a much-needed self-check-in in the day!
I joined a Seasonal Shift half day workshop with a focus on Rest and Selfcare last weekend (at the Bow Sanctuary) - there January was also discussed as a "bridge" month which I really liked and resonates with the idea of an in-between month.
I shared in a friend chat about the workshop and one friends response was "I don't have time for rest or selfcare, but I hope you do". Initially I thought it wasn't even worth responding, but eventually decided to- reflecting on how its not a badge of honor to disregard these things, though they might feel like an induglence they are essential to our health and wellness- which is not just for us, but the people around us too. I hope we all can make space for rest in 2024!