Starting Again

Why is it so hard, after a break, to start working again? I always feel resistance. Several times during the Xmas break I came into the studio and, after working so hard here for months, I was surprised to feel how foreign it all felt. There was my table with all the used up paints and the floor was still covered with my paint mess. The evidence of my art making was everywhere, but I still felt like a visitor to my own studio. I have noticed that the absence of making art dangerously leads to more of the same…”The less you do the less you do.” Creating is a muscle that will happily atrophy if we allow it. The solution, at least for me is to just begin  and try to show up and pay attention to what is in front of me and become wonderfully lost in it all. It takes a bit of effort at first although, like an awkward first kiss that is doubly filled with vulnerability and  anticipation, it also holds a degree of excitement for what might be possible for the future.
It does seem true in art making that “the less you do, the less you do.” Fortunately, however, the inverse  is also true-“the more you do the more you do!”  This makes it possible to find your groove over and over again. It is how we build our own momentum and produce and create art like there is no tomorrow. It allows us to fill our studio, our imaginations and dreams with our art. Again.