Preparing for the Artist’s Winter Season
The artist’s winter season is a time for deep nurturing. It’s a parameter of time, completely determined by you, to turn inward and nourish your creative foundation. Leaning into a creative season offers you the chance to align with your current circumstances, intentions, feelings, and needs.
Preparing for the Artist’s Winter Season
Unfamiliar with creative seasons? Click here to learn more about a new perspective on the creative practice.
Why Should Artist’s Winter?
The idea of wintering isn’t anything new - all humans experience episodes of the overwhelming feeling to turn inwards. Many different life experiences might render this season. Yet, each season serves a purpose and there is so much we can learn from the quiet, dark, and cold days.
As artists, I think we take for granted the creative need to experience winter. Producing art is an enormous outpour of energy which makes it highly important to fill ourselves. The artist's winter season makes room for new light and inspiration. We need to winter to come home to ourselves - it’s a place to feel safe and be flooded with nourishment.
Note, a creative season does not have to happen alongside the current natural season or have a prescribed length of time. You might feel symptoms of Winter in Summer or Fall in Spring. You may find you need just a few weeks to many months to be in one place. Lean into where you are at personally, and allow your actions, goals, and otherwise, to reflect accordingly.
What Do Artist’s Do During Winter?
Use this season to identify the place where you create art from. What do you need to make this place feel full and alive? Everyone will nurture themselves in different ways. I enjoy exploring new literature and research, finding renewed energy for writing, and taking long, hot baths. These wintering activities give me pause, rest, and reset to find new light and inspiration. This keeps my creativity alive and pushes my skills forward.
This isn’t to say you can’t make progress during your winter season. Rather, you can cater your season towards the activities that help you cultivate feelings of home. Finding pause might challenge you with uncomfortableness and restlessness. Remember, the only place to make a trusted decision in your practice is to create from a place of your own needs.
How do I Define My own Winter Season?
There are a few guiding questions I use to align myself with my creative season.
How am I meeting my current circumstances, intentions, feelings, and needs?
What do I need to keep doing during this season?
What do I need to stop doing during this season?
In the comments below, feel free to share what one thing you are hoping to offer yourself this season. I’d be delighted to be in dialogue with you as you work through your intentions for the months ahead.
If you are looking for extra guidance this season, I created a 25-page workbook to help you discover a creative practice full of sustainability and abundance. Enter your name and email below and I will send it directly to your inbox.
