​I just got back from the woods. It is a misty soft morning and there were drips of left over rain on all the tiny new born leaves and branches. Stunning!

It is spring and I have been dealing with a ton of ideas popping inside me- images of things I want to create. It is very fun. So much potential and bubbly energy!

I love it..... until it starts to feel painful.

The pain comes in the form of overwhelm, indecision, pressure, should's, impatience, and then moves into frustration, impotence, lack of energy, being stuck, and finally into a feeling of being a fraud, not really being an artist, being worthless, etc.

YIKES!

Does this sound familiar?

​It is a time for a lot of work to bring the deep winter growth out to the light. This process cannot be rushed- don't expect the garden to be in full bloom right away- and don't expect that all that rich internal work of winter is going to suddenly emerge fully formed. There will be mud, and lurching and things to clear out of the way.
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What: Taproot Spring Workshop
When: April 29 from    1-3 pm est 
Where: Zoom
Who: artists and creatives of any sort, any background and any level of experience who like to play in the imagination
Cost: $25
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Join me as we feel into the flow that is going on inside us, clear the  channel of whatever is getting in our way, and bring a sense of patience and ease to our creative work. 

The Spring is well underway, the juices are flowing, last year's seeds are sending out delicate hopeful little roots, the buds on the trees are getting engorged and preparing to open to the world.

Bring your journals and we will do some visualization to invite our deep inner work to direct our attention. This will be a very safe container for personal exploration and reflection. 

As we move fully into spring, this will be a wonderful way to find grounding, affirm your place in the world, get yourself aligned in your direction, set intentions and prepare for the year ahead. So much healing to be done and as artists and creatives, our voices are a balm to our cultures.

This will also be a great way meet other creatives who value the process of discovery that can happen in creative play.

This is not a promotional event, but I will leave a little room at the end to share my offerings and take questions.
 

There is a message that we get as creatives that in order to sell well we have to have a singular voice, a brand that is recognizable. Ok- it might be easier for people who are getting to know your work to recognize you, and it might make people feel more comfortable with that sense of recognition. But it does not serve the world and it does not serve your own creative exploration to limit yourself.

We all have very different sides to us. It would be disingenuous to limit yourself to only one part of yourself in your creative work. It is like the woods I was walking in in this video, where it had recently snowed: it looked very different that day than the day before, expressed itself differently, but was in fact the same patch of woods that I know and love. It changes with the season, with the weather, with the quality of light and with time passing and parts growing and dying. As do you and I. We are affected by all the things happening to us through our lives, and we naturally express ourselves in a variety of ways.

The thing is that our audience needs the diversity of who we are because they too are complex beings. Our integrity and authenticity in this is a gift to them. It does not serve anyone to stay small.

I say go ahead and do all of your work and when it comes time show it, create the record, put together the look of poetry, create an exhibit, you can curate a unified body of work and talk about how of the pieces fit into a whole in your writing. Trust that it will be naturally unified because you are a whole person and all of the parts of you fit together, all of what you are learning and growing with fit together. You may not know how they do while you are making them, But when you look back over time, the connections are going to be the key to your greatest learnings.

I would love to know your thoughts about this idea- have you felt the pressure to limit yourself? What is your experience and what is your fear? Please comment below!

Warmly,
Val 
PS if you know anyone who could benefit from hearing these words, please pass this along or share it in any form you have!

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​​Have you ever felt like you are juggling and all the balls are about to fall down around you? You have multiple projects and types of work going at once. It starts off well- exciting even. But so easily you lose the control, one ball falls and it feels like they are all going down.  

This is common for creatives because you have a lot of ideas that pop up and seem really exciting- it feels great to dream something up and put that starting energy behind it. But the anxiety and low self-esteem can so easily be triggered if you can't get a good rhythm going, and the balls begin to drop.


I know this feeling well- in fact just last week it came up for me again. It can feel deeply undermining- like you are a fool to think you are capable of making your dreams happen. But the fact is that it is a sign- but not one of incompetence. It is a sign that you are stretching!

So what do you do?

Do you have to give up the variety and complexity that seems so endemic to who you are?

​I want to talk about the conflict of making art from the heart and trying to sell it. Or the perceived conflict.

If you are reading this, you are probably like me in being an artist who tries to make work that is real to you- that touches you on a deep or tender level. Art that is swimming in your own very particular sense of beauty and may be at the edge of your own discomfort- in the very place of your own growth and healing.

If it is working, it is powerful and beautiful and raw and very vulnerable stuff. And often it feels like you are not sure what you are doing or how to do it. It is not easy and for the most part- you have no clue how to talk about it- especially to someone who might have a wallet with money in it!

How are you ever going to be able to bring that vulnerability out to the world? The very thought is enough to make you go running for cover- blankets and teddy bears and all. And yet somehow there is an urge to share it.

Have you ever felt that sense that you are a fraud? For creatives this is a normal part of the creative cycle.  And it can be very painful, but it does not have to be.

It is very common after a period of creative activity to feel like a fraud and a dilettante- The voice in your head starts berating you with things like, "All these fabulous ideas are silly and they are going no-where."  "You do not have what it takes."

​This can spiral into  a real morass of self-pity- as you look around and feel completely isolated- you have been so caught up in your own thing that you do not feel your sense of connection with anyone. You start telling yourself that you have been a self-centered egomaniac and everyone has gone off to enjoy each other and ignore you.

Ouch this is painful! Am I going over-board here? I may be stating it rather strongly, but for many creatives, be they small business owners, artists, writers, musicians it does feel like a seriously painful roller coaster.

First of all this is a normal cycle for a creative person, and maybe in-fact for all living beings- it comes with the territory- like the phases of the moon or a woman’s cycle- the tides- the seasons- there are times that are full of growth and potential, times of flowering, and times to drop the leaves and go inside and recoup.

​The good news is that you have been getting into the studio and making work, at least some. You are trying to get your creative work moving again and you have decided to go ahead and do short, quick studies- what I would call doodles. The key is that they are low pressure things- throw away work, nothing serious- just a way to get the juices flowing. I will talk more about this process in another post.

The bad news is that when you walk away from it, your inner critic starts yelling about how stupid it is, and how scattered your ideas are, and how you have no discipline or direction and you are never going to amount to anything as an artist. Ouch. It is hard to keep going in the face of this!
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I don't know if it really helps to know this, but it is completely normal. I go through cycles of this as does every artist that I know. And it can be very painful.

As frustrating and painful as it is, what is going on here is really good stuff!

Why can't I make real art any more?
Is this question familiar? It goes like this: You are frustrated because it has been forever since you have made any real art and you doubt that you still have it in you. You have always thought of yourself as an artist, but sometimes you wonder whether you can really claim that anymore. I have so been there! If you have been like me, there are things that you have done to try to be creative, and they have satisfied a certain part of you, but they go now where and end up feeling like dabbling. The feeling of really making art is like a distant memory. Art school is long since over and life kicked in- responsibilities took over and here you are 20 years later and you don’t really know who you are anymore. It’s like that old Talking Head’s song  “this is not my beautiful life, how did I get here...”. You do things to get yourself grounded and centered like yoga, walks in the woods, even taking a day to clean and organize helps sometimes, but there is something missing.
 

First I want to acknowledge that this is not actually small. It is a big issue. You and so many others like you have been able to keep on living and taking care of the stuff of life, but underneath it all- there is this