Watching shadows

It’s nearly mid December and this will be the first time I have posted this month. Usually I have a plan and I stick to it with regular posts throughout the month. I have been quiet. I have been creatively blocked. I have sat with that and wondered why.

When I started writing regularly, someone advised me to keep writing for me, not for an audience, not for you out there. It was the same advice I give my art students, focus on the process not the outcome. As my audience grows beyond my core community who have taken my courses it’s hard not to feel the pressure of writing for an audience, of giving value, of being interesting. It’s hard not to feel like another voice in the online noise, just as it’s hard to be an artist in a world of other artists. Social media has given amazing ways to connect and share as well as huge doses of comparison and self-doubt.

I wrote a note in my book to write about shadows. I meant from a visual perspective but as I open my notebook to write a post for here I realise that I am in a December lull. I am biding my time for the rest of the year to pass and for the light to return. I am aware that I am not my best advocate when I am like this and that sometimes quietness, stillness and simplicity are the antidote to feeling like I am having to shout and hussle to stay afloat.

I know that I need rest but I also need time to create. I have work in the studio I am preparing for an exhibition in February and I need the time to feel fuelled by the process of making. I need to rest in this shadow-land of the year and not expect too much of myself. I need to put as much down as I can and then stand like the pared back trees, raw and true to myself. And when the solstice comes I need to look to the light and let the shadows fall behind me. Not long now….

“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you”

Maori proverb

helenhallows.com from Stitching the Stillness online course

How does the season shape your creativity? Are you feeling festive and buoyed up by the chances to make and share your creativity or are you ready for some stillness and solace? Let me know in the comments below. I am finishing work on the 20th and looking forward to making and baking and some gentle time with friends and family.

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I post three free-to-read posts each month and a subscriber post that I publish on the first of every month. It’s a magazine style post where I share, over a three monthly cycle, inspirations, creative wellbeing advice, how to manage creative block and move to creative flow. In month two, I share lessons from my online courses in the form of a ‘dose’ of creativity to kickstart your sketchbook practice. Coming in 2025 are interviews with other artists as well as news from my studio and insights into my creative practice (in month 3). Join my tribe for £5 a month or £50 a year and get access to my previous posts too.