Is your Art in Rhythm with you?

Are you finally getting in the rhythm with your Art? The fourth stage of Creative development is called Rhythm and it is when this occurs. Are you in this stage? And if you are how do you tell? There are 5 recognizable stages in creative development:

Stage 1 AWAKENING
Stage 2 DISCOVERY
Stage 3 INTEGRATION
Stage 4 RHYTHM
Stage 5 MASTERY

Today I am going to describe the recognizable details of the fourth: RHYTHM
(In prior weeks in this blog I have detailed stages 1,2 and 3)

The Rhythm stage is all about being finally in the flow with your art. It is a huge accomplishment. It is what, for probably years, we have all dreamed about. We know what it feels like because we have been catching glimpses of it ever since we began pursuing our art. And actually, it is what keeps us motivated. The sense of dropping in fully to our art, having periods of time that we lose ourselves making our art is priceless. Making art when it is effortless, when it turns out even better than we imagined is fabulously rewarding. However experiencing these moments, especially in the beginning is rare.

But in crossing over to the fourth stage, Rhythm, these moments become more and more frequent. This fourth stage is, in fact, the natural progression of fully integrating your art and your life, which occurred in the prior stage of Integration.

When we experience flow or rhythm in our art practice, what we are actually experiencing is ourselves, through the medium of our art. Making our art becomes smoother, easier because it is just a spontaneous expression of ourselves. It is like finally realizing that we can’t really dance too well if we are trying to dance like someone else. Our dance, our art, becomes less effort full when we give up trying to make anything that is different than who we are.

Your art, in this stage, is flowing because it is a simple expression of you.

And as a result, this stage is marked with having greater confidence. The answers needed to make your art are now mostly found within yourself. However, because you have more energy, as it is not spent struggling so much like prior stages, you have more headspace, more opportunity, to look up and become inspired by other’s art. Your additional energy derived from this stage often results in teaching and helping other artists who are in earlier, more challenging stages.

Your art usually continues to become more and more unique in this stage and as a result, there are more and more people that are gathering around your art.

This increase of interest from collectors, galleries and individual buyers increases now because where you have arrived and the sophistication of what you can make is not very common.

Your art is finally as unique as you have always been. It has just taken you this long to figure out how to express it in a way that the rest of the world can see it too.

You no longer question this part of your life. In fact, some days you are hard pressed to think of anything quite as satisfying as spending a Sunday afternoon making art.

And that, considering where and how all this began for you years ago, is quite an achievement.

Are you in this stage now? How does it feel?

And by the way, if you are not quite in the Rhythm stage, you sometimes glimpse it, which is a clue that you are getting closer…