The sleek porcelain was cool against my cheek. Despite the arresting crick in my neck slowly making its way down my stiff spine, I could not move. My limbs drooped below the countertop my head was resting on like spindles melted by the heat of gravity.
My reflection was beginning to emerge in the large window across from me. Glazed-eyed I watched as the last embers of glorious amber light faded from view. Night fell and clung like a weighted blanket, and thousands of tiny bulbs soon replaced LA's natural glow - stationary lights stuck in a grid of urban density. Another day gone.
My screaming muscles finally propeled my aching body off of my kitchen countertop. My laptop had long since fallen asleep, but I could not muster the energy - physical? emotional? - to stir it awake. I had nothing to offer the blank document that sat waiting for my cooperation. No words had emerged, no images had sprung to mind or heart, all day. Why should I expect the evening to be any different?
More than the looming stark white page another fear kept tight vigil over my frigid muscles, constricting my heart and tightening my chest. Google's soft, rounded corners and pleasantly calm tones of blues, yellows, and reds belittled the weight of the emails that beckoned my immediate response. Despite my resolution to summon willpower, I had no reply for their urgency.
I looked down at my shadow oddly elongated on the light hardwood floors. Like it, I felt somehow beside myself, pushed far beyond my realm of normalcy. Lately, the most basic of tasks seemed to stretch before me, taunting me with their simplicity as I struggled to engage in daily activities. Despite the mounting list of to-do's flowing from my inbox, I could barely slip out of bed these days. How could I possibly generate the level of energy, concentration, and creativity required of me to perform as a creative yet again? This level of unproductivity was foreign to me, and I wrestled with its unbidden presence.
I encountered my first experience with burnout early 2023. I had never known the lethargy and lapse of concentration that characterizes burnout, so I did not immediately recognize it when it appeared. I thought I was sick. My days are generally punctuated by loose forms of making coupled with gentle bouts of rest. Throughout 2023 however, I struggled to lean into rhythms that were typically natural for me.
I had just completed a new body of work for my first solo exhibition titled Blk Halos. The work had taken every ounce of energy and creativity I had to birth it. During the process, it never crossed my mind to complain. I enjoyed nearly every minute of the intense months that demanded all of my concentration. I didn't think twice about the 20+ hour workdays (or the days when I didn't sleep at all), nor about the sporadic eating schedule that consisted of random bites of insubstantial snacks and the occasional hearty meal. I didn't stop to consider the ache in my joints from sitting behind my loom or stretching over my canvases each day. The date for the exhibition was set, and the work was beckoning me to help it live. I obliged willingly.
Tunnel focus is useful, but only for very brief periods of time. Eventually, the toll of forced creativity demands payment. So, when my body nearly shut down and my creative energy refused to show up at my beck and call, I had no choice but to sit and wait. During this period of forced rest I was reminded of a few lessons that had guided my early days of learning how to live as an artist. I was reminded of Julia Cameron's words in The Artist's Way that creativity was not about forcing anything to come into being, but about gently listening for and nurturing what wants to emerge. She also writes that for every sprint we engage in, we should log ten slow laps. Essentially, the author is helping us to lean into - not work against - the natural rhythms of creativity.
I love that I get to be an artist, not only in private practice, but also as a part of my public-facing career. The joy of making is far beyond what I could have dreamt for myself when I first started asking, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" However, our creativity is like any other part of our lives. It must be tended to and cared for. When we place heavy demands on our bodies we know that we must rest and sleep. The same is true for placing heavy demands on our creativity.
Part of the ongoing tension of living and working as creatives lies in navigating external expectations for repeated efforts. When the crowd cheers and audiences erupt into spontaneous applause, the questions that seem to spring from rosy lips almost immediately are, "What's next?" and "Can you do it again?" And again? How about one more time? Despite how Ai is rapidly forming our cultural expectations, creativity is not a magical button. The cost of human ingenuity is often forgotten in our pursuit of creative realization. So, how do we move from thinking of ourselves as factory workers, avoiding the impulse to think that we can churn out brilliance like one would fast fashion?
Here are four practices that helped me to recover from debilitating burnout.
- Doing absolutely nothing - at all. This was the fastest way for me to recuperate. However, beyond this, it was also helpful to remind myself that the point of recovery was not to regain my strength and energy only to jump back into productivity-mode again. There is value in simply resting for the joy of it. The point was to get back to my healthy rhythms of creating. I had only morphed into hyper-focus mode because of the demands of developing my first solo exhibition. I don't regret this time of intense making, but it is not how I want to live and create normally. The rhythms of creativity don't adhere to notions of "productivity" and "efficiency". Creativity buds like a sleepy seed, only splitting and emerging when it is ready. The process is slow. The replenishing, even slower.
- Ironically I have found that for every day, week, or month that I push myself beyond my normal rhythms, my body requires nearly an equal amount of time for recovery. For example, if I stay up all night to work on a project it takes me nearly a day to recuperate my energy. When I spent four months preparing for my first solo exhibition, it took me nearly four months to finally move out of a state of burnout. I have not done any research on this, but I wonder if there are scientific studies on the intersections of productivity, time, and creative recuperation.
- Putting the projects and to-do lists aside to go do something fun. In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron writes about how essential it is for us to replenish our creative well. Rather than waiting to do this when we are near empty, we can do this by setting aside time weekly to simply rest and to have fun. Cameron refers to these times as "Artist Dates". They are times that are intentionally set aside, but not intentionally structured. The point is to do simple activities that energize and delight us. Fun and play add balance to our normal rhythms of production.
- Balancing depth work with play work. I often note two primary differences in my creative practice. On one hand, I engage in what I call "depth work". This is the work that demands hours of research, engages the most challenging social and personal issues, and requires the most from me technically. The other form of work I create is more akin to play. I engage in this work simply for enjoyment.
- Depth work is slow cooking. I have found that I have the capacity to engage in one large scale project that requires heavy emotional lifting once a year. Once I have wrapped these types of projects, I often begin creating smaller works that offer emotional breathing room. These are lighthearted and joyful - creative snacks, if you will. I simply engage in them because they delight me. Here my focus is less on a subject, theme, or intention, and more about seeking out that which lifts my soul and warms my heart. I need this type of creation in order to fuel up for the depth worth that I believe is immensely important.
- You may have a higher tolerance for deep emotional work, and can engage in multiple depth work projects throughout the year. Each of us is different. The point is to balance your depth work with projects that you engage in simply for the joy that they bring you. Only you can determine what that balance might look like.
- Making with others. Much of my lighthearted, joyful making is done solo. Here I am filling the proverbial image of an artist alone in her studio. However, when I am engaging in works around collective well-being I am also creating spaces with and for others. Collective issues require collective solutions, and none of us is capable of solving social problems in silos or vacuums. This sort of work requires that we collaborate and jointly design and build our collective dreams. The key for me has been to find voices who inspire me and to find ways to contribute to what they are building, or to invite them to collaborate so that we can create together. In short - don't do this work alone. We cannot carry the weight of social issues, or even our own personal traumas, alone.
- I would add, joyful work is also multiplied when shared with others. What might it look like to challenge the idea of the siloed creative? What becomes possible when we create together? Might we find creative renewal in the act of collaborative making?
