Do you know your place?
Three reasons creatives need to know where they belong.
So often being told to ‘know your place’ is a put down . A suggestion that you are getting uppity and need to back down. In fact , there are three reasons why knowing your place as a creative can empower you.
- We all need a ritual recharging place
There is a neighbourhood cafe near me called BocBoc. It’s devoid of art, has a plain menu that never changes, looks out onto a car park and a road junction. Yet, whenever I go there, within minutes I am greeted by a flood of creative ideas. In fact I am writing this in BocBoc right now on my iPhone.
So what’s special about it? Nothing. (Except maybe the lack of criticism when you ask for chocolate ice cream for breakfast). It’s the ritual. I started to go there with art books, planners, my iPad. Started to use it as a place to think, to look at Pinterest, to read blogs, to note some thoughts in my journal. I took the same corner table, enjoyed seeing the same staff and customers. Soon, my subconscious kicked in:
It’s BocBoc! It’s inspiration time!
Now, sitting at that table is like plugging myself into a recharging station.
It’s not the place really. It’s the ritual. But the ritual requires a repeated place. I do wish my local cafe was in San Francisco or Vancouver. But it doesn’t need to be. It’s not where the place is, its the fact we have a place we go to often. It’s the repeated intention to be open to inspiration and the trigger action of going to your place that matters.
2. We need to know where our workplace is.
As an writer and artist I can attest to the fact that one of the disadvantages of a creative brain is that we see possibility in everything. If you don’t know your place in the world it’s easy to get pulled all over the show trying every technique and never making any your own. every successful artist has worked through that greed for knowledge and settled to a way of working that is now a home for them. Progress comes in leaps and bounds once you find your place.
Ruins 1 by Leah Higgins www.leahhiggins.co.uk (180cm x 60cm) Shortlisted Fine Art Quilt Masters 2015
This is one reason I admire my art partner Leah Higgins. She knows her techniques — she focuses on dye and printing — particularly breakdown printing — and she knows what her work is about and how it links to her life. I on the other hand only occasionally dye. I have worked out that acrylic paint suits my working process, my personality and the style of my mark making much better. So that’s what I do.
I’ve come to think of it as like choosing a home to live in. I like to walk residential areas cities when we travel looking at houses. Georgian terraces, jam factory conversions, cute mews houses- I’d love to own them all. Sometimes I rent one for a holiday. But I picked one. I made my studio there and decorated it to my style and now it’s my place. Now and again, I visit a new art technique for fun. Occasionally I might find something so perfect I add it to my repertoire — like building an extension on your home. But I always come back to my place.
3. We need to know where you are going
What is your end game? Why do you want be a creative? What is your definition of success? Where is the metaphoric place you want to reach? Are you aiming for awards, or money or a life off the grid painting the birds that land at your feet?
There is no right or wrong answer to those questions. It’s like asking, “What does your dream forever home look like?” But it’s a question that needs answering if we are to to wake up in our future oine day and find that we landed excatly where we wanted to be.
So, what about you? Where are your places, both physical and metaphorical? Do you allow yourself enough time there? Do you need to think about moving or staying put?
www.studioconway.com
