Proper Practice Prevents Poor Performance, and Other Obnoxious Inspirational Notions We Really Wish Weren't True

Shut up, chalkboard.

This week's challenge is one of those simple-stupid things that seem so easy, so obvious, that they barely deserve mention. But let's be real -- how many days so far this week have you actually set aside 30 minutes to create art??

If you just had a stream of protests and excuses come screaming to the front of your brain about why you haven't been keeping up, don't worry -- you're not the only one. If you're like me, it's probably because you're busy -- or at least you believe you are. Or maybe it's because you totally set the time aside, but when you sat down in front of that empty screen or canvas, you couldn't think of anything to make.

Let's rewind. When you first read Monday's challenge, did it remind you of anything? Maybe something that involves people clad in spandex with their smiling promise of rock hard abs in six weeks? That's right, we're coming up on Obnoxious Inspirational Notion #1:

1) The brain (and creativity) is just like any other muscle, and can atrophy without regular use.

The good news here is muscles can always be rebuilt - though if you've been away from something for a long time, it's probably going to take longer to get back into the swing of things. That's okay.

The bad news is, the brain is technically not a muscle. So yeah. Take that, stupid metaphor!

Despite its Biology FAIL status, Notion #1 makes a great point -- all that creativity isn't just going to flow out of your fingertips if you haven't been training yourself to direct your creative energy their way. But before you start the artist equivalent of a Rocky montage, I want you to remind yourself that if you're finding it challenging to actually make art everyday, it will get easier as your creativity muscles grow. As that devilish belle Scarlet O'Hara once said, "Tomorrow is another day." Do your best today, and then do your best tomorrow. Don't let one day's failure because the thing that keeps you from trying again. I promise, you got this.

Why Do We Glorify Being Busy?

Whenever somebody asks me "Hey! How's life going!?"  I almost always without fail reply.  "Super busy, but great!"

I do this because saying "oh you know, things are super laid back and easy right now." somehow seems equal to saying "I'm a lazy bum who has no work ethic and just sits around on my ass every day."

Where along the way did we as a society suddenly decide busy is better, that busy means you're successful, and that busy is a good thing?

Now don't get me wrong, I was a self employed college student for years… I understand busy.   I know there are seasons of your life where it just can't be helped.  But I do think a lot of times we don't understand or value personal downtime as much as we should anymore.

But like Kate was talking about in Monday's kick ass post, as creative people, busy can simply suck us dry and take over our lives.  We NEED that down time to relax, recharge, be inspired and have quiet time to work.

No one is going to carve out that time in our lives for us.  It has to be a choice.  We have to choose to say no to one more item in our schedule and protect our personal creative time.

It comes down to this… would you rather lead a busy life, or a productive one?  Busy people spend their lives running around looking like they are being productive, but in the end they never spend enough time in one place focusing on any one task to be productive.  Productive people spend their time fiddling in their garage with stuff that interests them until they've built the worlds first personal computer. The choice is yours.  :)

Here's a short awesome video from Thrash Lab talking about this very same thing!

Challenge #18: Just Do It

Last week, we pondered the question, "Is an artist still an artist if they're not creating?" While I don't pretend to have the answer to that, I do have an answer to the general feeling of malaise and confusion about life that may result from a failure to make art -- and it's GENIUS! Are you ready??

Just. Do. It.

Sorry Nike, I know that's kinda your catch phrase and all, but really, it applies to so much more than athletic footwear.

Sometimes (okay, all the time), I don't feel like taking the dogs for a walk in the morning. But I do it anyway -- sleepy, grumpy, and generally zombified though I may be -- and by the time we get done with our walk, I'll have woken up, the dogs will have used up some of their crazy energy, and I'll get to come home feeling productive. Not to mention that getting up out of the computer chair every now and then is actually good for me. But when that alarm clock starts screaming at way-the-F-too-early o' clock, the only thing that keeps me from smashing the snooze button with the vengeance of a thousand She-Hulks is one simple phrase: just do it.

Art creation can happen under similar circumstances. It certainly did in college, at least for me -- the teacher would give an assignment, and I would work on it. Usually leaving most of the work until the last minute, but still, I would work on it. Whether I felt relaxed and inspired, or if I felt stressed and exhausted, I still did it, because at the end of that project was a grade, and that grade could decide the future of my degree.


"Real life," as many of us post-college noobs have taken to calling it, comes with the same demands -- it can just be a bit harder to understand how our actions will affect our future. Being in school gives us an artificial sense of movement and accomplishment, with graduation acting as the finish line. Once you're out of school, there aren't any finish lines, or checkpoints, or advisors waiting for you to come in for a degree check. You're just existing, same as everyone else, and you have to be accountable to yourself when it comes to setting and accomplishing goals.

Therefore, dear reader, this week we're challenging you to stop waiting for a teacher or a client to put the pressure on you before you create. JUST DO IT -- take 30 minutes every day to work on art. Even if you don't finish a piece this week, you'll still be a lot closer to finishing than you were when you started. Now grab your swag, and get creating!

My Own Personal Abyss

The lights have been out at the Abyss since last Monday, in the name of detoxing from our constantly-connected world. I'll be honest -- I haven't been the best patient. In my defense, our detox week coincided with my attempt to buy a house (to all you homeowners out there, I don't know how you did it without going insane, but hot dang I applaud you for it), so the interwebbies became even more present then usual in my life.

That said, even just taking a break from the blog caused a real shift in my schedule and sense of availability. Writing and/or editing two to three posts a week, keeping up with Wreck This Journey, and making sure to get my collaboration sessions on with Kadie all take up significant chunks of time in my life. While its a worthwhile way to spend my time, once I add in work, household maintenance (dogs aren't going to walk themselves), and socialization (friendships aren't going to take care of themselves either), I end up feeling like there's not a lot of time left in my day. This isn't the first time we've talked about the struggle to find time for everything, but today I want to share a sneaking suspicion I've had for a while: that it just can't be done, period.

Cue Scrubs' theme song:



True story, brah.

Here's the thing: I've always thought of my creative work (writing, drawing, sewing, painting, etc.) as the thing that I do after I get everything else done. The thing that will arise out of the void created by having "nothing to do" -- my time abyss, if you will. It's why I identify so well with the definition of "abyss" that we highlight here on the blog -- the primal chaos before creation.

Here's the problem: when exactly do I find myself with nothing to do? There is always something that I could be doing -- whether it's helping out family, or grocery shopping, or joining into that super-interesting conversation on Facebook about whether the latest fan theory on Labyrinth is awesome or SUPER-awesome (and if you just missed that reference, you absolutely desperately must go rent it, or Netflix it, or stream it, or whatever the kids are doing these days. No excuses.) -- and thus my expectation that time to be creative will just show up in the form of empty, unscheduled hours on my calendar has left me with very little art produced in the two years since I stopped having to make art for grades. For that matter, even when I was in school, I still wouldn't make art outside of what was assigned. Back then, I attributed it to inspiration fatigue -- but these days, I'm not so sure.

You've probably guessed where this thought process ends up:

Is an artist still an artist if they aren't creating?

 Good golly Miss Molly, I don't have the faintest idea of how to answer that question. The short version is "Yes?" with a question mark because while I wholeheartedly believe everyone has the creative capability to be an artist, and therefore if you identify as an artist, who am I to say differently; but at the same time, being an artist is arguably choosing to make the creative processing of inputs - aka, what most people think of a "creativity" - your life's work. The long version is "Maybe . . ." followed by a long descent into rambling stress about how labels don't really help anyone anyway and how even DaVinci needed to eat, but then again, if I really was an artist, wouldn't I just feel compelled to make art all day long, everyday, and maybe I'm really just in the wrong field . . . You get the idea.

But here's the crux of the issue: instead of existing in a void where I have time to make nothing but art, at the moment I exist in an abyss devoid of art creation -- and that makes me sincerely question what the heck I think I'm doing with my life.

I'm reminded of the stories of the first trans-oceanic explorers, sailing off towards the horizon without any proof that there was going to be something waiting for them out beyond that infinite line of earth meeting sky. It takes faith to embark on such a voyage: that the water will give way to land, that the void will eventually become repopulated with something, and I'm not interested in turning back now -- but in the meantime, when it comes to art, I feel like I'm piloting a very small skiff into a vast and immeasurable darkness, where my inability (unwillingness?) to make time to create leaves me without oars or sail. That's a frightening thought.

I know, it sounds melodramatic. And in some ways it is -- there are far worse things in the world than being busy with family and friends and work and day-to-day life. But if we're going to truly change the way the creative world, and the world at large, currently does business, we have to stop only talking about the pretty, happy, pulled-together front that so many of us use to disguise how genuinely lost we are, because of some feeling that we don't 'deserve' to feel lost. That kind of pretense helps nobody.

Challenge #17: Pull The Plug

Can I just exchange lives with this person please?

Seriously, where do I sign up for this?

I mean I don't know if it is really even possible to look that amazing and serene while chilling out in what I'm sure must be bug infested grasses, but I want it!

I'm the first to admit that I love technology; the two weeks I had to go without my iPhone when it was stolen almost threw me into an acute panic attack. (Did you know that more than 50% of us suffer from what researchers are calling "nomophobia" or the fear of being phone-less!?)

If it has a little picture of a partially eaten apple on it, I probably own it or have a family member who does. I love the endless amount of questions my brain can ask and find answers to with just a few clicks of a finger. I love escalators and being able to call my husband on my cell phone when my car dies on the side of the road. I love writing for hours and not having my hand cramp up because I've been holding a pen for too long.  I love being able to carry around 100 different books wherever I go in a tablet smaller than 1 book would be. I love Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the way they let me stay connected with family and friends now that I live so far away from home.

But for every one of these modern conveniences there is a price that has to be paid, and that price is time, connection, rest and exploration.

In my head it seems like all these amazing tools would give me more time and keep me more rested and connected and let me explore the world in a way I never was able to before.

So how is it that my head could think one thing but my body feels the exact opposite?  Because my head and society are wrong.

We have become so connected that we no longer understand why or how to disconnect.  But our bodies need down time, they need rest and time to recharge.  Our brains need freedom and space to romp and roam without boundaries and the only way to do that is to unplug from all the white noise we fill our lives with until we can hear the music again.

That's why our challenge this week is to unplug. As creative people it is essential that we take care of ourselves because everything we do, everything we create, is born out of us. If we aren't healthy, our work isn't going to be either.  Not only that but we need fuel for our creative fire and sparks of inspiration, which is why we need to get out into the world and explore and experience things for ourselves, not second hand through our computer screens.  So often we are content to surf pinterest or google images for inspiration and never even leave our homes, but by doing that we limit our sources of inspiration to merely what has already inspired others instead of going out into the world and finding that unique time/place/experience that inspires you and you alone.

Need more convincing to unplug?  Studies show that disconnecting from technology and taking time to recharge can, lower stress and depression, bring your family closer together, help you think deeper, be more effective and efficient, enjoy life to it's fullest and be healthier.  People are even going to Digital Detox summer camps for adults where they can disconnect to reconnect.

And if you need a really over the top, way too dramatic PSA on unplugging to convince you, try watching the video below:

Basically the message here is that we need to step back from the tech and toward personal interactions with one another or with our surroundings.

Ok great, but how?  Sometimes our lives have been so formed around tech that when we get rid of it we have a moment of… "but what am I supposed to do now?"  Instead of letting you be totally lost for what to do with yourself during your digital detox we made a handy little list that you can print out and hang on the wall during the week.  Hopefully it will help inspire you to connect with something other than your computer :)

Finally, to practice what we preach we are going to be pulling the plug on The Art Abyss for the next week as well!  That's right, you heard us.  We think this is so important that we are shutting down as well (I mean Kate and I could hardly have a digital detox while simultaneously running a website now could we?)

So with that, my fine interwebby friends, good bye and good luck! See you on the other side of detox!