Inspiration Lows (Artistic Downtime, Burnout, or Block)

How do you deal with those times when your muse just seems to have picked up and moved out? I think this is one of those things that I've been struggling with forever, and I still haven't gotten a handle on it. Back when I was studying fashion at F.I.T., I had an instructor tell me that inspiration is a learned skill, just like anything else, and that the successful people in life just always know what to do to just keep pushing through.

Great. Another person telling me that I just don't have what it takes to be successful. I'm sure she didn't mean it that way, but of course that's how I took it, thanks to my parents always telling me how lazy I was.

While I do believe that dealing with artistic downtime is a skill, I don't think I believe that "pushing through" is the best way to deal with it any longer. It smacks of when people say "dig deep". My God, how I loathe that phrase. "Dig deep" seems to me like a codeword for taking abuse from other people and repressing oneself. It's about trying to find the strength within oneself to overcome everything -- even being abused. Sorry, but we're not Superman and we need to quit telling everyone to be like him. We don't need to "dig deep" when we're being abused, we need to just stop, say "No more!" and get the hell out. But I'm getting sidetracked.

I believe that dealing with inspiration lows has to do with acceptance. Liz Gilbert, author of "Eat Pray Love", gives a really meaningful presentation about nurturing creativity. She cites the Ancient Greek idea that all creativity is a direct result of being manipulated, for lack of a better word, by what they called a "daemon". The Ancient Romans called that spirit a "genius". The artist isn't the one creating, the artist is simply being a tool for a divine being. I can easily make the jump to translate the idea of a Roman "genius" into the Holy Spirit.

This does free up a lot of stress having to do with creativity and artistic work. Perhaps she's right, we do need to stop punishing ourselves, even mentally, during the time when we are just not being inspired.

Danielle Laporte says that artistic downtime is just a given. Burnout is normal, so embrace it, because it's a necessary part of the cycle.

Caroline Allen at Art of Storytelling: On Writing reminds us that downtime has no rhyme or reason. It's actually impossible to schedule around, because, as she says, "Downtown for artists is a completely different beast from vacations needed by full-time workers. As a novelist, you could write one page and need two weeks off! You could write a thousand pages and not need a break at all."

Just more proof that it really has nothing to do with we humans at all. Reading through all of these things, I think it all comes down to trust, actually. Trusting that God hasn't taken away the gifts He has given us, and that hey, He knows better than you about what you need. So you need the downtime. So what? It's not the end. Actually, it's better than the end. It's a recharge so that you are able to once again channel the Holy Spirit in the best possible way.

I think I can live with that. I'll definitely try. And do more yoga.

Creative people, how do you deal with inspiration lows?

This is what it's all about.

Last week a customer contacted me on Etsy about making her a custom piece. She had seen my "Garden" Anglican rosary and wanted something similar for a friend of hers who is very ill. She wanted it to be an Irish penal rosary.

I had never heard of such a thing, but after some research, I found that all I really needed was some sort of ring. This was the hard part, as I did not want to go ahead and use a key ring that some other artisans use because of the raised edges on them. That wouldn't be pleasant to put on and off your fingers, especially for the sensitive skin of someone who is ill.

There were some brass things I looked at, and some silver rings, because she mentioned that she liked sterling silver. Nothing really seemed to work for either of us, though. Funny, then, that she mentioned possibly a wooden ring, because I had the same thought on the same day.

Anyway, I got the wooden rings, and they turned out to be just perfect for both of us. Here is a photo of the finished product that I shipped out today:


The thing is, while I was doing this, I felt a real sense of "rightness". That this is what is important in life -- to make something that holds real meaning for someone else. Of course while I was knotting this rosary together I said prayers for her friend, and I thought about the look of joy on his face as he would open the package. I thought of him lying ill, the rosary in his hand, praying and beseeching God.

I hope this rosary brings him healing and peace and joy and everything else that's good in this world, as much as a tiny item can, of course.

And that's what making rosaries, or jewelry, or any kind of art is all about -- the emotional connection between each of us, and the gifts from our maker.

Olive Tree

Here's something different from all those rosaries lately.

Olive Tree on Etsy

It's a pair of earrings that I made last year when I was trying to impress someone, who, unfortunately, turned out to be a real jerk. That's okay, it gave me a chance to work on my self esteem and my boundaries. God really is a loving, teaching father, even though the learning part can be pretty darn painful sometimes.

I bought these little carved jade leaves back in 2004, and I really wish now that I had bought more of them. The color is a beautiful moss green with a bit of natural veining in a lighter green shade.

I knew that I wanted to make these little leaves dangle prettily from someone's ears and be able to "blow in the breeze" like leaves would, so I devised a system of graduated 14k gold wire rods to suspend them from.

Then I realized that it needed a bit more color, and a bit of something more, so I added some Swarovski crystal "berries" near the leaves and then the topaz crystals above them to really set off the motion of the earrings and give them some more sparkle.

Yes, these are very sparkly! And I hope you enjoy them.

What do I have to blog about? And why Anglican rosaries?

Here I am, finally, my first blog post. I've been a member of the online community since the Echo NYC days, and I read plenty of blogs, but I never thought of having a blog of my own. Then I heard somewhere that people actually like to read about what goes through an artist's mind as they create something. And especially interested are the people who seek to purchase said art.

Huh. People really are interested in that? Okay, then, here goes.

So I guess I'll start off this Poesies blog with my latest "artistic stage" -- Anglican rosaries.

I was raised by lazy Catholics, but my grandmother was very religious and taught me the Catholic rosary when I was a child. Well, I was very young then, and it was way too complicated for me.

And then a bunch of not-so-nice things happened in my life and Catholicism was all tied up in that, and so I ran -- not walked -- away from the church and Christianity. May I say that it was nothing specific that the Catholic Church did, this was a result of my toxic parents.

In any case, it took me, oh... 46 years to come back to God and Christianity. And at this time I realize that I really just don't agree with the Catholic Church on many important subjects. I went to the National Cathedral because I was living near Washington, DC at the time, mostly because I was curious about the Darth Vader gargoyle (http://www.nationalcathedral.org/about/darthVader.shtml -- how cool is that?) And the more I read about the Episcopalian tradition, and the more services I attended, the more I wanted to be a part of it.

My love of gemstone jewelry got me curious agai n about rosaries, and I discovered that "this particular way of using prayer beads was developed in the mid-1980's by Episcopalians in the United States participating in a study group dealing with methods of prayer". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_prayer_beads)

I've found that praying in this particular way is much easier and speaks more deeply to my heart than the traditional Catholic rosary, especially when using bible verses.

So I decided to make some. My first attempt I posted on Etsy, and it received some interest, but I was not happy with the way it was made, so I took it apart and worked some more on the idea.

Here is the result of that work, which I call "Garden":

Garden on Etsy

You may be wondering why I did not choose a traditional cross of silver or gold precious metal. It is because I am fascinated with the natural wonder's of God's earth, and of the ways he makes himself known in the smallest of ways.

When I was young, a relative visited Fairy Stone State Park in southern Virginia. (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fai.shtml) and brought me back a "famous fairy stone". Fairy stones are naturally occurring staurolite crystals. Staurolite grows in the shape of a cross.

I remembered this long-gone cross, and I thought that this would be a perfect way to make a rosary that bespoke of the wonders of the world God has created. I was lucky enough to find some for sale on the internet, as much as I would love to go to Fairy Stone State Park!

Then, what was I going to put with it? Something earthy, obviously. Again I was inspired by the green-earth-Garden-of-Eden imagery that unakite stirred in me. Unakite to me looks like a patch of grass that is partially covered by the red leaves of autumn. Red aventurine is a perfect companion to unakite, and what could be more garden-ful than a carved flower?

That just left deciding what the actual construction would be. Traditional Hindu prayer beads were made of knotted cord, or dried seen pods on knotted cord. Cord just seemed to coarse for semiprecious gemstones, so I chose brown silk thread. Many other rosaries have "spacer beads" separating the beads that you actually pray on, but I didn't want anything to distract from this wonderful garden.

So there you have it. The story of "Garden". I hope that whoever ends up with it enjoys the inspiration of this beautiful earthen kingdom that I hoped to evoke when I created this rosary.