I was emailing an old friend who had just completed a cruise that went up the coast of New England to Canada. She was apologizing for having been in Boston but did not have any extra time on either end of the cruise to meet up with me. In my response I asked her how she was navigating issues like climate change and politics and whether being a grandmother has added to her anxiety or concern about these issues. She wrote a long email back about how her coping mechanism is basically to turn away and focus on all that is good and wondrous and to be positive. Or rather basically the opposite of what I am doing these days. And part of me understands why she has gone down the path of “Magical Thinking” because it is easier to believe everything is OK and will be OK for her grandson moving forward than to confront the reality of where things are headed.
I also was emailing an art friend of mine who is my Peer Art Group. This friend is extremely prolific and can whip out a dozen small pieces easily in a week. And she is also incredibly talented so many of them are good. But I asked her to think about curating the pieces she was positing and to “think” about them and what she wants to say as a way of making the work more powerful. She was appreciative and wrote back that she is trying to balance the “thinking” with the “art making”. Hmmmm…her comment made me realize that sometimes I get too twisted because I am “thinking” and not just creating. And some of the my best work happens when I just “create” …although often the creation ends up internalizing the thinking.
Which brings me to where I am today. I am struggling with creating because I am feeling so passionate and thinking so hard about all the pain and suffering and struggle and want to find a way to capture it. I am typing to avoid creating right now. I need to go back and focus less on the output and more on the process.