Better Aligning With My Intentions to Create More Space and Ease in my Creative Practice
I’m often asking myself how I can create more intention and space into my creative practice to have more ease and focus on what I truly love. Last year, I shifted my mindset to consider how I approached my business and creative practice. I felt I was no longer leading with purpose and I wanted to rewrite how I was intentionally crafting a way of operating - a creative practice - that actually worked for me.
This isn’t to say that I wanted to change the type of business I had, the artwork I created, or the way in which I shared them. I wanted to make a shift in my business that supported more intention and space in my creative practice. These types of changes aren’t often quick, however. There were long-term decisions made, and slow changes implemented, and now I finally feel like I am through the clearing enough to make sense of the seeds I am sowing to build a more intentional creative practice.
Where My Creative Practice Started
There was a lot that led to making this shift in my creative practice. In 2018, I started to deliberately sell my artwork. With the first collection I released, I created a body of artwork made entirely from earth pigments. I was so immersed in my process and began seeing an increased interest from others in my methods and materials.
I continued down this path and released another collection of artwork at the beginning of 2019. I also began writing about nature and what would later become A Geology of Color. I felt incredibly connected to my art and the way in which I was working - I was actively partaking in creative practice.
In 2020, interest in my processes and materials continued to grow, and I started mentoring other artists. After celebrating the release of my book, A Geology of Color, I began selling pigment sticks. I only released one collection of artwork that year - instead, expanding other, more product-based, areas of my business.
Better Aligning With My Intentions to Create More Space for Me as an Artist
Now, it’s easy to have a preconceived notion of where this success could have led. If I continued to lean into what was working, I might have been able to double my income, reach more people, and grow my business in big ways.
Yet, halfway through 2021, I realized I was building a creative practice that felt unsustainable to me. I was tired, uninspired, and stretched thin. The pace at which I pressured myself to work in order to keep up with demand left me feeling depleted with little energy for creativity. I realized I could have hired help, taken a sabbatical, or pushed through the hustle.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I encouraged myself to figure out what changes were necessary to better align with my intentions and create more space for myself as an artist.
How was I feeling? What was I needing?
Why was this way of operating no longer working?
What haven’t I experienced in a long time?
How did I define space? What did I need to be true?
What parts of my business brought me the most joy? What felt fulfilling and life-giving?
In the answers I found, I realized I was taking steps away from what I valued in my creative practice and business - finding a presence and rendering the landscapes around me in my own visual language. Rather, my creative practice was becoming busy and haphazard. And the changes I was seeking were foundational in the way I wanted my creative practice to exist.
So, I began sowing seeds to rewrite how I wanted to better align with my intentions to build more space into my creative practice so I could experience more ease.
Sowing Intentional Long-Term Seeds for My Spacious Creative Practice
Sowing seeds takes forward-thinking, identifying change and practicing resilience, and a whole lot of patience.
I started this slow and tedious questioning by defining what I most deeply needed and felt - and that was making and prioritizing time in my creative practice to create artwork. With this aspiration, I was well aware of the commitment it was going to require. And, alongside that commitment, I also had specific intentions to restructure and grow my mentorship offerings to better align with how I most enjoy supporting my mentees.
As I mapped out how I wanted to create more spaciousness in my creative business, I had to be realistic about what I could work on, how I could work on it, and when. I had to meet my current circumstances, and continue supporting myself financially.
I decided I would first start building space into my creative practice by restructuring my 1:1 mentorship offerings to become quarterly instead of meeting over a shorter period of time. This shift only truly required me to make a new offering page on my website in addition to a few tailored letters to my email community. In return, I could look ahead to my mentorship program enabling me to work more closely with other artists and build more opportunities for their growth. It would also offer my creative practice more predictable time and space in 2022.
Once my mentorship spots were secured, I was able to dedicate the beginning part of this year to building a body of work. Honestly, it was such a delight. I felt like this collection enabled me to come home to myself as an artist and establish my intent back in my creative practice.
Right off the backend of that collection release, I began detailing how I would finish the Practicing Artist program, a program I began writing in 2021. While this program wasn’t intended to buy me more time to work on my artwork - it would instead create the freedom I was seeking to channel all my mentorship ideas. I thought carefully about how I would tailor the program, ensuring the magic of the Practicing Artist framework wouldn’t get clouded over with extra bonuses. It would remain the focus of the program - keeping this offering simple and light with the space to explore additional ways to support and guide each cohort.
In between all the aforementioned projects, I gave myself the liberty to lean into a process I didn’t have the opportunity to engage with in a long time - printmaking. And as the Practicing Artist offering came to a close, I joyfully curated and released my first volume of monotypes.
This brings us to the near present day. A year after I carefully started sowing seeds for more intention and space in my creative practice, I am finally able to see the clearing.
Celebrating My Spacious Creative Practice in the Clearing
Before me, I have 30+ originals that I feel truly represent me as an artist - and I can now use this body of work to begin seeking gallery representation - a goal I have set for 2023. Without aligning with my intentions, I would have never had the space to build a body of work. I may have faced rejections from galleries without a solid foundation to support me.
I also feel like I have a solid grasp of my artist mentorship program. I’ve worked (and am currently working) with some of the most talented and incredible artists. I can show up fully and wholeheartedly for them, guiding them to their truest selves. I also have the ability to focus on each release of the Practicing Artist program and creatively explore ways to support and guide that community.
Coming Home to My Creative Practice
Finding intention and building this type of space in my creative practice required me to come home to myself - both as a person and as an artist. And I am honestly so proud of the work I am creating right now. I am starting to see the other side of the decisions I had to make and how my creative practice is only becoming more deeply rooted.
I believe as artists you are always on the path to becoming. As you learn and grow, many different circumstances present themselves. It’s an opportunity to find your intention, and build a truly resilient and clear creative practice that is rooted in yourself.
If you are craving more intention and space in your creative practice - the confidence to identify your area of becoming deeply root your creativity - you can read more about my artist mentorship program here and the practicing artist framework here.
