I'm in a new relationship. Or more accurately, rekindling an old one.
A friend invited me to join a cohort for The Artist's Way—a 12-week program for creative recovery. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve been feeling stuck lately. Which is wild, considering a lot of great things have been happening for me. But there's also been a lot of transition, and some heavy things to process. A lot of breaking out of familiar habits and comfort, if I’m going to be ready to step into new, great experiences.
One of the main tools in The Artist’s Way is the “artist date”—a weekly solo outing to woo your creativity. If it benefits couples in a long-term relationship to make intentional time to stay connected and keep the spark alive, creatives have to do the same with their muse. Especially once you’ve had some success—getting paid gigs, selling work, showing in galleries—it’s easy to shift into productivity mode and forget to nurture what got you here in the first place. You have to treat your creativity like you want her around.
What are the things that really inspire you? Do those things. Maybe it’s hiking in nature, hearing the kind of noise that isn’t man-made, or filtered through an algorithm. Maybe it’s walking through a museum and seeing work that’s bold, masterful, clever, or just plain weird in the best way. Maybe it’s having a few of your favorite beers at a local brewery—and taking the tour, just because you love seeing the process of how things are made.
For me, this week, it was a trip to IKEA.
I love walking through IKEA and seeing how each room is staged. There’s so much creativity in how they display and use furniture—it sparks ideas. I love looking at the art on the walls, imagining how I could present my own work in ways people can picture in their homes. I get affordable, clever ideas for presenting my art. It’s simple, colorful, and fun—and it fills me with inspiration.
As I walked around IKEA, I started taking photos so I’d remember the things that inspired me. Then I thought about sharing the experience with my audience, which shifted my approach to capturing images, and heightened the way I experienced my artist date. I started looking for more interesting ways to document displays, and it was fun to practice my photography in such an informal way and play with visual storytelling.
I was also supposed to document how I felt—which I didn’t do very well. But as I look back through my images a week later, I am reminded how simple it can be to create an engaging experience. Things don’t always have to be brand new. Pattern, color, and texture go a long way in making a space feel alive. Being in that environment gave me so many ideas and made me want to create from a place of joy again—not just obligation or commerce. Business is business. Art is art. They exist at opposite ends of the spectrum, though you can always find ways to make them meet and play nice in the middle.
It also got me thinking about ownership—how I dream of one day having land, maybe with a few tiny homes that could be a shared creative space for community. I would love to create spaces that people would want to inhabit to nurture their own creative experience.
So yeah… My first artist date was a success. I'm already looking forward to the next one—possibly a visualization exercise at a brewery. And a tour. We’ll see.