Creating is Scary Business!

mixed media by Donna Heart

Creating Art is scary business. We leave the mundane world behind, with all it's demands and judgements, to enter the creative space. Sometimes that space is a cleared place on the kitchen table where we can spread out our paints, or a favorite spot on the couch with a sketch book on our laps. If we are really lucky (or have the tremerity to demand it), we have a studio--a whole room to create in.

It doesn't matter. A lap or a room, the challenge to leave to world of unwashed dishes and meals to prepare, the world of other people's expectations--that challenge is still there. That daring to step away from the mundane into the sacred is the same, and It it can be darn hard!!

So how do we do it?

 Donna Heart, in her blog Where Art and Life Collide, says:

" it seems then that dwelling on the mystical side of our art can bring us undone, and that has been key for me. "


The trick, she says, is to just begin. Do it. Once you start--wether or not you are "in the mood"--the muse will come. The fear will vanish.


I think it's like shifting gears (does anyone else drive a stick shift anymore?). It's tricky. It takes a bit of technique. I have my body trained to do it well after years of practice. Changing gears from mundane to creative takes practice too, and is a bit of a trick. 


My favorite trick is to fix myself a cup of tea and drink it in my creative space, with my sketch book at hand. 


What is yours? How do you shift gears from mundane to creative?