Creative Wednesday Week 1

Author Julia Cameron encourages readers of her “The Artist’s Way” to do a weekly “Artist Date”. She defines an Artist Date as “a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers”.

Ultimately, the goal for a weekly Artist Date is to dedicate sacred time to pour back into yourself by getting unstuck and out of your normal routine. By breaking free, you invite possibility, opportunity, and play back into your life just as we had when we were children. This practice provides us with the ability to see what of “what could” be instead or “what is”.

I’ve done The Artist’s Way several times through now, and I have kept two of the main objectives throughout the years; morning pages and Artist Dates. I have found that the Artist Dates allows me to explore the city in which I live in that I often take for granted. Once established into a rhythm, I tend to fall back into a similar pattern of visiting the same coffee shops, parks, and museums. But through keeping with a weekly Artist Date, I have had the pleasure to step into the unknown and find events that I may not have gravitated towards on my own.

For example, when I first moved to the New York City, I found out that I was close to The Japanese Society center. I found that they were doing a modernization of a Kabuki performance as part of Under the Radar theater festival. I bought a ticket and it’s still one of my favorite events I did when I first moved to the city. I had heard of Kabuki before but was not aware of the historical significance or the context in which it has been pasted down from centuries. With the modernization of this classic performance, I was able to learn from the Artistic Director during a Q&A session, how they came up with putting in the middle of the performance a hip-hop rap performance.

Another time that I was able to go off the beaten path was when I went to Paris several years ago. While researching and looking that the maps of where I was going to be, I came across what I deemed the Paris Money Museum, Monnaie de Paris (or The Paris Mint). At the time I was on my debt free journey and was obsessed with anything to do with money, currency, or the like. I couldn’t get enough information or education on the topic so this was right up my alley as they had laid the museum out beginning with the materials that were used, to what made currency, currency to then taking a look at the history and changes that took place over the centuries providing us with behind the scenes look at printing presses and stamps. Not only was the material beyond interesting, the building itself was also exquisite. From an outside courtyard with a large art installation to the beautiful stonework on the inside, it is a place that I’m sure often gets slept on but will hold a very special place in my heart.

But an Artist Date doesn’t have to be as grand as going to Paris or going to a performance. It can be as simple as visiting a coffeeshop and working on your correspondence with loved ones. Write out a letter or a postcard to those that you think about often but don’t get a chance to talk to on a regular. Color a picture for them and use that as the card or envelope for your greeting. Whatever you do, make sure you are doing something alone that allows you to pour back into yourself.

I have noticed over the course of me doing The Artist’s Way, that participants tend to over think the Artist Date, concluding that it has some undisclosed criteria or it doesn’t count. Wrong. It’s simply any activity that you find enjoyment or wouldn’t typically do. Again, the goal here is to force yourself out of your comfort zone and to experience another art form all so that your creative mind and soul can be sparked into action.

With summer solstice quickly approaching, I find that the next few months are the best times to find opportunities to figure out Artist Dates for ourselves. It can be anything from going to a new park that we never have visited before, a coffeeshop that has been on our list to check out for months but haven’t made the effort to go, to take a Sudoku puzzle outside to enjoy while listening to the music of the city below.

Whatever you decide to do, know that this activity is not for not. There is purpose, even if you may leave that week feeling like it there was no purpose. We can’t always be married to the outcomes; we can only allow ourselves to be open to have the seed planted within us.

Join me this summer, during my 100-day challenge to do a weekly Artist Date with me, for the next 14 weeks. I know it may seem daunting at first, but once you get in the momentum going, you will be wishing you had started this new weekly tradition years ago.

in love and light,

Lisa Marie