The Biggest Misconception About Being an Artist

One of the most common misconceptions, I think, about being an artist is that we’re always making art, nonstop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That making art comes effortlessly to us and without any obstacles, confusion, or roadblocks, ever.

It’s not at all like that.

Sure I’ll have blocks of hours or days where I feel like art is just spilling out of me like water from a faucet, but I also have chunks of time where I’m not making any art at all. Chunks of time where I’m out living my life, doing the human things: spending a week catching up on laundry, washing all the dishes, vacuuming the house, going through mail, addressing the giant pile of miscellaneous papers I’ve accumulated, running errands.

I’ve learned that there needs to be downtime. There needs to be moments where we can breathe and observe, to just sit and be and live. These “in between” moments of not creating are the moments when we get to experience life. Without these pauses, we’re not really taking in any new life to inspire, influence, guide, and inform our work.

That’s the key.

"When we allow ourselves the space to just be, we are allowing life to inspire our future work."

In fact, I think as soon as you realize you’re not feeling inspired or that you’re feeling drained creatively, that’s usually an indication that your cup needs to be filled. So go out and live. Go swing at the park, ride your bike down to the store, treat yourself to a coffee at a local shop, get all dressed up, go to a concert with friends, go on a walk somewhere new. Give yourself permission to just be. You don’t need to be creating 100% of the time. Your creative work literally needs you to live your life. So go live. Just be. :)