You just have to remember that you’re a creator and not a machine. You just have to know when you’ve got to step aside and either move onto something else or just stop until the moment feels right again.
Originally asked
The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series
A recurring Creative Independent question whose wording distinguishes a lasting block from a temporary impasse.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
J. Bennett, The Creative Independent, 14 January 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 69 →I don’t. The process of trying to get to something is part of it. Sometimes I don’t have much of an idea initially. For me, studio time is also about reading and looking at things. I might spend a couple weeks just reading something or looking through images or doing image searches or going to museums and thinking in front of great paintings. And then at some point I start to get back to my own ideas and how they can form into something that has meaning for me.
I’m not sure. I haven’t actually felt very stuck creatively or sonically. And when I think about it in hindsight, it’s just been on the forefront of my mind and what I think about. That has meant that I haven’t really thought about a lot of the other things that I do. But I think knowing that I have this thing that I can come back to that is interesting for me in my time here on Earth is healing for me, and makes me able to go out and do a lot of other things. It’s a bit of a lifeboat. So it helps having creation in music, but I don’t know if it’s implemented in the other practices. It’s like I have a sweet little invisible cat on my lap that I can stroke in the real world.
Just realizing that the block’s part of it. There’s always a week or two, or even a full month, where I’m convinced I’ll never write again, that everything was a fluke before. Or I’m writing, and I can’t tell if it’s inspired or shitty, but I don’t really freak out like I used to. I know that it’s just part of eventually figuring it out. It used to make me panic, but now I know it’s just what happens.
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