It’s been quite busy around here as I frantically work on my new online workshop and start planning projects for 2019. There’s just so much that I want to do!
But I’ve been feeling like my journaling and my art has been getting put on the back burner. I have been able to do some things in my journal, especially for Journal Friday, but it’s been too easy to ignore the artwork much of the other time because of all the things that I have going on.
But I keep going back to something that I have always said when others have complained about not having the time to make and do art, “We give priority to the things that are a priority” We can give lip service to how much making art is a priority, but unless we actually make the time and do it, it’s not a priority.
So, earlier in the week, I decided to make art a priority, and I stumbled across something that I had written a few months ago, and it really struck home. I came across this question, “What if we made one artistic act each day?”
Not one piece of art or one journal page or one post it note, but one artistic act. It doesn't matter how big or little, how much or how little time — just one, simple act. So, I decided to pull out my journal every night since then, and just try to do one artistic act. Most night’s it’s been with pen, and I’ve drawn circles, mandalas, patterns, lines, shapes, and much more. But one night I pulled out watercolor paint and sat at the coffee table and added paint to quite a few pages over a few hours.
By shifting the focus to this simple notion, I’ve taken a lot of pressure off of myself to find a copious amount of uninterrupted time to make grand pieces of artwork, and I’ve found fifteen minutes here and five minutes there. As I’ve always believed, these small actions accumulate into so much more.
I’m looking forward to trying to carry out one artistic act a day and seeing how long I can sustain it.