Creativity Review: Your Artist Inventory
Claim All You've Made
Note to subscribers:
I realized right after my first post that I want to hear from all subscribers. Initially, I’d planned to open comments to everyone. Then I changed my mind. Now, I’ve changed it back - everyone can comment! This feels much better.
I felt silly changing my mind, but this whole process reminded me to listen to my original impulse. I look forward to hearing from you all in the comments!
How does your commitment to your artist show?Â
I know you are committed to your artist, and you’re here because you want even more of that connection and creative love. Today, let’s take a look at your commitment so far. We’re not talking about how many hours you’ve invested or how many words you’ve written.Â
INVITATION
Your Artist Inventory is a brief overview of your creative life to date. Start with it today and add to it over the week as more things pop to mind.Â
List all the things your artist has done. Go back as far as you want. Later in the program, we will do our Adventure Resume, where we chronicle the things we’ve done that make us uniquely us. Here, we’re listing the things we’ve made.Â
Include ALL the things you’ve left unfinished. No shame belongs in this artist inventory!
CategoriesÂ
You probably have a lot of creative outlets. It may help to use categories to itemize your artist inventory. You’ll have your own, but mine are:Â
Writing
Art
Experiences I’ve designed
In Writing, I include the books and articles I’ve written as well as the journals I have filled. Every bit counts!Â
Art I include the bodies of work I have made and sold including the series I have done such as the 100 day projects.Â
Experiences I have designed include my writing and art retreats as well as the classes I have taught. Experience design is a big part of my creative expression, but at first glance I hadn’t thought to include it. I also include personal gatherings like my annual Solstice Gathering and my Day of the Dead Dinner.Â
After you’ve gotten all your output written down in one place, read over your list. Which projects light you up when you reflect on them?Â
What do you notice now about your commitment?Â
Take a few minutes to write about your creative inventory, using the prompt: I notice….
Affirmation: Even if it’s not on the surface, I am committed to my artist.
In the comments: What do you notice about your artist after taking this inventory?
I notice that I never had long phases in which I wasn't creative in some way, even as I child I have always been doing some creative stuff of some kind. As an adult my artist was often very committed to something for a couple of years and worked very intensively on this thing, wanted to know everything about it and tried out materials and techniques almost endlessly. It really put in a lot of hard work and got very good at what she was doing. Then at some point, it was somehow over... no longer interesting.... Like a light that got switched off... That way she really got done quite a lot in quite good quality. Impressive, I think I may be proud! And I also enjoyed those time my artist was head over heels for something. That was really fun.
Now I'm into drawing and painting and I'm slowly getting rid of that old pattern. There's so much healing happening through drawing and painting. What I also notice there is that when I don't have a project I can work on I often struggle finding a subject to draw or paint. I have all the materials ready and there are tons of ideas floating around but not having a plan just makes it hard to get started. Having a plan all ready makes it easier for me to just get going and enjoy the process. Interesting!
Sometimes though I fall back into old patterns and restart checking things out and wanting to get better at xyz. But I also realise that I don't like doing everything that I would like to be good at. The things I love the most are not necessarily the things that involve being good at xyz, and so I don't like practising the things I want to be better at. I guess I'm going to make a choice there... Courage to leave some gaps vs. closing those gaps... :-)
Wow, what interesting insights already... :-) I'm really looking forward to get continue with the next session tomorrow :-)
Oh gosh, I would have so much to list. I have done this at the end of many years and I'm always surprised by how much I have gotten done. And how much I have done that was private or unfinished, which is also great to acknowledge and useful and full of learning!