When you're in the creative desert

Embrace the uncertainty. Don’t panic. Here are some tips.

Mamaroneck River, Carol L. Douglas. I'm really bad at shooting pictures of my Painters on Location work, but this one is from around 2010.

On Wednesday, I wrote about the tendency to paralysis when we start producing a body of work we think is awful. I see this among students, but it happens to all of us. Old-timers just recognize it as an unavoidable part of the job and plow through it, miserable as it is.

The dry desert is an inevitable stop along any creative journey. You have three possible paths out:

• Scuttle back to what you were doing before;
• Quit and do something else for a while;
• Find ways to quiet that awful voice in your head.

Obviously, I choose the third path, but the other two are very common (and self-limiting) reactions. Start by reminding yourself of a basic fact: you haven’t suddenly forgotten how to paint. Dissonance is part of growth. Even experiments that fail are valuable; they’re an essential part of the painting process.

Beaver Dam on Quebec Brook, available through Gallery of the White Plains County Center through November, 2019. For more information, contact Adam Levi, Rye Art Center, (914) 967-0700.

Trusted friends

This morning I’m at Rye Painters on Location. At the first one, I baulked at the starting gate. Daisy de Pothod told me, “You know how to do this!” It snapped me back into reality.

Sometimes friends will suggest changes, but it’s more likely for them to say, “I really like that.” It helps me see past my own skewed judgment.

Regatta off American Yacht Club, by Carol L. Douglas. This is another painting from Rye of which I didn't take a very good photo.

Ask a teacher or fellow professional

You may be wrestling with a technical, rather than emotional, block. Good painting teachers watch your process and redirect you. Identifying the trouble is more than half the battle. But what about the teacher who undermines your confidence? If there’s bad chemistry between you, I simply would not go back.

Painting-a-day disciplines

Painting-a-day programs are helpful at riding through low spots. Your goal isn’t greatness; it’s to finish something every day.  In the end, ironically, that’s usually when we do our best work.

There are many of them on the internet, but it’s just as easy to make up your own. I devise all kinds of these for myself and run through them whenever I’m stuck. They’ve taken the form of tree-a-day, still-life-a-day, fantasy-landscape-a-day, and more.

Morning fog over Whiteface Mountain, by Carol L. Douglas, is available through Rye Arts Center until September 14. It's a silent auction starting at less than half the retail price. If you're interested in bidding call Adam Levi at (914) 967-0700, or stop by the Rye Arts Center gallery at 51 Milton Road, Rye, NY.

Focus on the process instead of the results

I’ve given you protocols for oils and watercolor. They’re not the only approach to painting, but they’re good general guides. Focus on them and let the results take care of themselves.

Many people baulk at imposing order on creativity, but it is the basis of every great artist’s practice. And running through the scales is oddly soothing when your soul’s in ferment.

Do exercises that support your weak spots enough that they cease to be weak spots

Are you flummoxed by color? Make color charts or mix matches to paint chips from the hardware. Are you trying to add architecture and people to your paintings but they look awful? Practice drawing. Is your perspective wonky? Find an exercise in perspective and practice until you understand it.

Paralysis

Me, working again. What a relief.

Any artist who tells you they have never suffered from creative paralysis is a liar. In my case, this is often the first step of a major series of work. It takes the form of extreme anxiety, where I can’t even walk through my studio doors. My solution is usually to approach the project sideways. I do little studies until I regain my nerve.

That would have been my normal approach last month, as I cleared the decks to work on a major show next spring. But what would have been a temporary state has been outrun by the events in my personal life.

This morning, I enter the maw of modern medicine again in the form of a pre-surgical meeting for a recently-diagnosed cancer. I’m not overly worried about the long-term outcome, but recovering from my last surgery has been awful for my work habits.

Why do people seek out psychics? Actually watching fate bearing down on us is an awe-inspiring and terrible thing. This month, two people dear to me moved through the final stages of death. I was useless for anything other than the most habitual tasks. I felt as if the circuits of the heavens were opened up, and I could do nothing except stare.

One built, eight more to go. But that's progress.

I suppose I could have handled my physical recovery, my loved ones’ deaths, or the anxiety of a new project separately, but the combination of the three was too much.

Ultimately, I used others—most notably, my husband and my assistant Sandy—as emotional battering rams. With their support, I was able to get back to work. It’s a funny thing about painting: it’s essentially a solitary act that is also a form of communication to the world. And death is a solitary act that is also universal; nobody escapes it.

Each time we artists stumble and fall, we think, “It’s all over now. I’m ruined; I can’t meet my commitments.” I was well into that mantra of self-condemnation until I recollected that I’ve banked a lot of hard work over the prior year. If I don’t sell another thing in 2013 (and since I’m about to have another surgery, I doubt I will) it’s still the best year I’ve had since 2008.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!