You've got the time. You've got the space. You're free to create.

So… why aren't you?

This kind of creative block is incredibly common in artists. The ideas are there — especially when we're doing something else — but the willingness to sit down and start? Not so much.

We tell ourselves it's self-care to step away. "Be gentle with yourself," they say. But if creating matters to you — whether it's your career or your lifeline — stepping away can quietly reinforce the very inertia that's keeping you stuck.

Yes, be kind to yourself. But while doing the work.

And underneath it all, many blocks are rooted in fear:

Fear of failing. Fear it won't be good enough. Fear of what people might think.

Or pain from the past — old critiques, rejections, shaming moments you still carry. These pull you out of the present, where your work actually lives.

So bring yourself back. Be present. Drop the judgment.

Let the work be messy. Let it be flawed. But let it exist. Every imperfect piece brings you closer to the art you really want to make.

No more waiting for magic.

No more waiting for perfect conditions.

Just sit down. Show up. Start something.

That's the only way it gets made. 🖌

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Next: How your thoughts and habits block your creativity

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Original post:

So there you are. You have free time. You have a workspace. You are perfectly free to get down to it and start churning out the work. So why aren't you?

This is one of those really strange and curious creative blocks, and weirdly, I think it's also one of the most common. I know lots of artists of different stripes, we talk a lot when we're not doing the work, and it seems like a certain fraction of the whole, different ones at different times, are always having this kind of experience.

So what's up? You're full of ideas — when you're doing something else. Ideas aren't necessarily the problem. Besides, there are a thousand ways to generate ideas. Where is the effort? The willingness to throw yourself into it? The elbow grease? The enthusiasm?

Artists trip themselves up in many ways. As the old Frank Sinatra song says, "May I list a few?"

The first one is a popular. We're suffering from the idea that, somehow, art must be Art, that it's not the product of ordinary ideas and ordinary effort, but it's somehow more mysterious than that and requires almost a kind of magic.

This is such a pervasive idea and so inaccurate. It's a misunderstanding of the creative act.

Art starts simply, with fragility. Chug through it. The thinking about art as Art trips us up. Just put one foot in front of the other. Letting fear drive us from the work just exaggerates their seeming gravity. We want instead to treat ideas evenly, with a feeling of lightness.

Another block is comparison. Scribbling out our own work and then somehow, subtly or obviously, comparing it to something, usually something famous, we know and love. What a thing to do to ourselves. A new art work, the vast majority of the time, is not a finished, polished art work. It's basically just an idea which develops over time. The artworks floating around in our mind are usually from masters in their field at the height of their powers. What chance does a fragile, new idea have against that?

It's just a false comparison. Ideas take time. When we compare great works to our own new ideas we're comparing apples and oranges. Compare and despair.

How about this one? "I don't feel creative!" Oh, that's a great one. I don't feel creative. Makes sense, right?

Well, only in the sense that you may not feel like mowing the lawn, or doing the dishes, but if you want them to get done … you do them anyway.

The reality is that art isn't any more magical than any other activity. Yes, the results of doing the work are sometimes mysterious, but more often than not that's not something you consciously select. Successful artists putting out work find ways of getting themselves into their workspace and doing their work — whatever they feel like.

People have this idea that art is some kind of mystical intervention. Well, it can be mystical. Sometimes. But only usually in retrospect. Doing the work is not mystical. It's just like any other job. Then, somewhere down the road, if you're lucky, and after you've been working day after day, sometimes profitably and sometimes not, you look back at something you did and say, "that's kinda nice!"

Then you just keep working. Because that's the only way it's ever going to get done.

I've read on a lot of "if I'm feeling blocked, I just don't do the work that day," which is usually presented under the idea that this is being gentle with ourselves, or being good to ourselves in some way.

That's fine if making art isn't a high priority for you. It doesn't matter whether you need to do it because it's a career and you have to get the next show up, or if you're someone to whom the creative process and making art is a vital part of who you are, "profit" be damned. For those of us who need to make the work, the "walk away from it" is not so great.

I'm all for being good to ourselves, but it's important to understand there's a difference between form and content. Just because something has the appearance of gentleness does not mean it's actually gentle. Take an example with the opposite emotion, a teacher shouting at a student. At first glance, of course, we would say this teacher is being too rough, too harsh, and in most cases we'd probably be right…but what if this teacher knew this student extremely well, knew his or her psychology backwards and forwards, was an intensely caring and experienced person, and chose the precise tool and mode of expression to get an important lesson across in that particular moment? The "form" of roughness in this case would be deceptive — the teacher, given all the conditions I stated were true, would simply be using the most effective tool, temporarily, to illustrate the idea involved. I've been, on very rare occasions, the recipient of this kind of teaching, with the tiny sprinkling of great teachers I've been blessed to have, and it has opened my mind.

In the same way, I think this form of "being gentle with yourself," in the context of dealing with creative blocks, is deceptive. Again, if you need, for whatever reason, to do the work. If actually nurturing the artist within is what's important to you.

For the blocked artist, the emotional or psychological energy of NOT doing the work is stronger than the energy of DOING the work. The inertia is all on the side of No Progress. I think this "walking away from the work" idea, presented in the form of "being gentle with ourselves," only reinforces the inertia of No Progress. What we need is to harness this force of inertia and start to build experience on the Making Work side of the equation.

We don't do this by walking away from the problem.

1. Yes, be gentle with yourself. But be gentle with yourself AS you're doing the work. The emotional and psychological energy of the blocked artist is almost always built around ideas relating to: A) Fears about the future (what if this piece is not good enough, or what will people think); or B) Negative experiences in the past regarding our art-making, or how people have perceived it, etc., etc.
2. What this often means is that we're avoiding the present moment, lost in our fantasies about the future or our sorrows about the past. The art work is here. The art work is now. We need to work on strategies that help us remember this. We need to rid ourselves of this baggage. It's such an important part of being an artist to be free.
3. Detach yourself from judgments about quality. This is vital. This is key. It may well require a set of strategies all by itself, but if making art is important, and if we are blocked, we need to recognize that criticizing our own work is one of the most powerful tools we use to keep the blocked artist blocked. Would we rather have nothing to show for today? No art work at all?

Remember: Every piece you make, no matter how wonky, no matter how imperfect, is taking you in a positive direction — toward making the work you truly want to make. Every delicate, new piece of art you make — if you can somehow just free it of judgment — is actually a tangible, physical, actual step toward making the work you love. •

©2009 by An Artist in Brooklyn All rights reserved.

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