This week’s prompt for our calligraphy challenge was about numbers and the ‘and’ symbol. When I first read the prompt I tried to think of songs or sayings that had numbers and the word ‘and’ in them. All I could come up with were Motown hits, this one stuck in my head by The Jackson 5. And of course now the words are running through my head and making my hips sway and my toes tap, very fun!
Sometimes when you are asked to be creative or produce a certain ‘thing’ you draw a blank. You think hard and work to come up with an idea, and nothing comes to mind. You then begin to sweat and feel the pressure, knowing that people are waiting to see your end result. You think harder and more intensely and press yourself to come up with something new. And when the idea doesn’t come, you begin to sweat more. So you think harder and longer and ponder and fret maybe just a bit about nothing coming at all. You know this pattern, you fall into sometimes when you are busy, stressed, over wrought, or frazzled. You press yourself and that pressing adds pressure and sucks the life right out of you. So now there is no way you can be anything near creative because your internal pressure has stressed you out and eliminated any chance of creativity making an appearance.
This is when self awareness needs to kick in. By knowing yourself and knowing your pattern of self imposed stress, you need to take a deep breath. It’s time to slow down and stop trying to think and be creative. Stop trying and just let yourself be yourself. Take a long, slow deep breath and know that an idea will come. That idea needs time to germinate and grow. An idea needs to have a safe place to land in your head, and with all the chaos you have created nothing much that is inventive or new has any room to live. Maybe you need to walk away, do something else, maybe even take a nap to give your brain a rest. The idea will come. The idea will come.
All this is what went through my head when I was trying to be creative for this week’s prompt. Once I let it go, I woke up the next morning with this idea. It took me about an hour to execute it to where I wanted it, then I was done. The idea woke me up, gotta love it. Once I let go of my self imposed chaos, the idea arrived in full force. I know better and have experienced an idea waking me up before, I simply let the thoughts in my head run wild and it all spiraled into creative chaos. Once I let it go the idea had time to grow.
Lesson remembered and fresh again. Let go and let your creative juices take over. It’s easy as 123, as simple as Do Re Me!
Ann Art Gallery Blog 