We had a really hot and muggy August. While many of my neighbors were cleaning out backpacks and getting ready for the new school year, I was making room in other ways. In retrospect, there were so many ways I made room for things this month that I decided to make it the theme of the September newsletter: Making Room.
It started, or perhaps was most noticeable, with the decision to not work on the book this month and focus entirely on making art. It wasn’t abandonment—in fact I plan on writing in September—it was refusing to let myself be swept up in the creative chaos that results when I find my attention being divided by competing interests. And it turned out to be a good thing. I grew as an artist, I rediscovered what was joyful about making art, and I was more productive than I’d been in a long time.
Not to say that everything I made had to be a product. In fact, because I made room for imperfection, I let go of the expectation that everything created had to be ‘worthwhile’. And that allowed enjoyment to return.
I made room for process this month. My first version of the Jack Moore painting was a failure, but instead of being an imperfection I allowed myself processing time to critique it and try again. Making room for my own viewpoint in that picture, and the following one of the Southern X450, gave the finished work human details that turned them from typical urban sketches into stories people can relate to.
Making room can also be about pushing things together so that something more can fit in. This month was crowded with health concerns, a camping vacation, ordinary household chores, returning to work at the ETSU Martin Center after summer break, and finishing two salable works, in addition to time for my own personal sketching, reading, and contemplation.
But the deepest interpretation of making room could be given to the idea of loosening one’s assumptions in order to find space for new ideas. I felt like I reached an epiphany this month when I realized that a ball point pen and a cheap sketchbook was all it took to give me joy. It helped me rediscover a feeling that I’d been chasing since ninth grade high school.
I let go of the expectations that serious creative work must produce a finished product, that failed first attempts are wasted time, that choosing one creative activity over another means I’m neglectful, that I have to choose between being a writer or an illustrator, a hobbyist or an artist. It made room for accepting that I can be whatever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, and it’s truly not important what other people think about it.
When I was younger, I looked at my future as full of possibilities. Now it is the present that is full of them. This month, I made room for art, not only in my schedule, but in my idea of what a worthwhile creative life could be.
Downloads are available below. The first is for viewing on a screen, the second is for printing a physical copy. I hope your month gives you lots of ways to make room for the things that are important to you.