Nevertheless She Rested

Coming soon: resuming Paid Subscriptions and other news

Apr 03, 2023

I’ve been home from my teaching trip in Kansas City for nearly a week now. It was a fabulous 3-day experience with a wonderful group of participants.

I didn’t manage to take many pictures during the class. But the in person connections, the conversations, the flurry of creative art making, and inspiration shared among students are embedded in my heart, along with fond memories of everything I have ever loved about teaching.

Being away from my own home routine, gave me the space to contemplate how I do what I do as an artist, a writer, and a teacher. It helped me to resolve some lingering questions in my own mind and brought clarity for how these three things are all connected to my career as a working artist, yet all very different practices.

All very different practices requiring energy, and time, and creative processing to maintain.

I came home with a sense of clarity over what I want and what I need to do, to make this artist life a sustainable practice for me—bursting with ideas and inspiration, and eager to implement the changes I’ve been contemplating.

But I also came home tired.

And so I’ve rested, and contemplated some more, and listened deeply to the messages being stirred in the process. The ones that had me second guessing myself.

April 7th will be the one year anniversary of the official launch of this blog. I’ll be resuming paid subscriptions and will announce some changes coming on that date. Not only for my writing practice here, but for all the areas I show up online as an artist, and a teacher, and a human.

Some of these changes involve letting go of parts of my practice that were once vital to me as an artist and person. Things that I loved engaging in but no longer feel like a good fit. Other changes are simply a matter of a sort of spring cleaning, making room for what is to come.

Of course I’m being intentionally vague about it all at the moment, but I came across a bit of encouraging affirmation in my own words today, written as a reply to a comment on a previous post:

“Icky middle/transition seasons are hard. Sometimes the not being able to engage in what we once loved is nothing more, not a block, but a shock to the system and a sign that resting is exactly what is needed.”

Transition seasons are indeed hard on us as creatives and humans sometimes. They can stir up every limiting belief and critic message we carry inside.

Physical rest and the rest I gave myself from writing the book was informative. It helped me to clarify and accept the need to deliberately build in better margins in my life. It helped me to gain perspective over the feeling that maybe I’d somehow failed myself for not achieving certain goals, maybe even wasted years of my own life in the process.

And as if my past self knew what my today self needed to hear on this subject, I found more affirmation in another response I’d written to a comment on a previous post.

Words that I’m sharing with you now, because maybe you need to hear them too.

“It wasn't until I was able to look at it through a different lens that I could see that my life wasn't wasted just because I didn't get the outcome that I'd worked so hard for. Neither is your life in the studio wasted. Your creative time is for you. It is for you. It is for you above all else.
The critic messages behind this can have numerous sources, maybe it is a message you heard growing up, that "waste not/want not" thing. Our production oriented society puts a dollar value on our time and the messages we get about our own worth as a result are subversive.
These are important things you've identified . . .

What I do know is you are worth the trouble and the time. This isn't just about art making, it is about everything attached to our creative lives—meaning our whole lives.

As I shared in the post above, I’ll be announcing some changes to come later this week, including resuming the paid subscriptions.

I’ll be rolling out these changes in stages, but have already begun the process of making room for what is to come and you guys are the first to know.Going, Going, Gone . . .35% off registration on the following courses as a Spring cleaning clearance offer and *last chance to purchase!