Seven lessons from seven days alone making art

This past week I squirreled myself away in a room, fully channelled my anti-social self (not hard) and made art again, a return journey 25 years in the making. Should you take on a similar endeavour – getting away by yourself (and artist or not, I cannot recommend it highly enough) – here are seven lessons from seven days in artistic solitude, lessons I believe can apply to the undertaking of any task:

1.?????? Be prepared to suck. In this era of self-love this may be a harsh truth to face. But trying something new, especially if you’re using a part of your brain that has been dormant for awhile, means sucking a bit and likely a lot. Get used to it. Accept it as part of the process. You will get better.

2.?????? Don’t fall in love with your output. This one is related to sucking and is a big challenge, because every time you do something that doesn’t suck, even moderately so, you’ll have the urge to fall in love with it. My advice: wait a day. When the sun next rises, you’ll see things in a clear and different light. Chances are the thing you fell in love with won’t be completely horrible (though it might), but will almost certainly not be as incredible as you thought. Analyze it and make it better.

3.?????? Bite off only what you can chew. When you do have success, the temptation is to get more ambitious. That usually leads to failure (sucking ... again), especially if you’re still early in the process. Stay within yourself until you figure out why something works and how you can make it work again and again. Then let your ambition kick in.

4.?????? Try something new. Not to contradict what I said above, but I will: when you get good at something, there is an equal temptation is to do that again … and again … and again, and never move forward. Success is seductive, but the next thing you know your greatest attribute becomes efficiency. Ew. Know when it’s time to try something different. And then be prepared to suck all over again until you get right.

5.?????? Take the good idea when it comes. The obsession in our world for everything to be great warps us unnecessarily. Truly great ideas are rare. So, too, are good ideas, frankly, but less so. If you actually have a good idea, count your blessings and run with it. It might stay good, it might not be as good as you thought, or it might turn out to be great. If you reject it simply because you’re always looking for something great, you will never know how great that good idea could become. This week I worked with a single idea: that we fight the war on climate the same way we fight traditional wars – same approach, same tools, same mentality; treat the symptom not the cause. You can see an example of what that idea produced at the top of this post. I don’t know if it's a good idea, but it was good enough to propel my work for a week.

6.?????? Fully commit. This one shouldn’t need explaining, but in a world jammed packed with distractions, you gotta stay focused and do the work. None of the good things you hope for will happen if you don’t fully commit to the task. There are no shortcuts and the surest way to success is to dive deep and stay there. Life will be there when you get back.

7.?????? Don’t eat so much. Finally, it turns out my mom was right. I wasn’t hungry, I was bored. This week, when I really got into what I was doing, I ate less and worked more. The more you love what you do the further away the kitchen gets.

A big shout out and thanks to the folks at Artscape Gibraltar Point, and especially Janet Hinkle, on the serene (at least in Winter) Toronto Islands. If you’re a creator, ask about a residency. And if you love art, consider supporting them. This place is an idyllic gem. Let’s not have that change.