Gary Goodwin
I give credit to A. from Alexandria who suggested this at a recent The Stuck Creative Meetup.
Even when A. is at her busiest and life is crazy with demands from other people, she makes sure she is scheduled to take a workshop a few times each year. Once she is off at the workshop, she is safely away from all sorts of distractions and her people leave her alone for that time. An island away from it all.
A. from Alexandria got me thinking: What would happen if we were to make sure that we are scheduled for a minimum of one workshop per season. Those four got me thinking bigger: What if we made sure that we had four more workshops on our schedule beyond the first four. That is 8 “creative islands” per year where: We are away from distractions, focused on our creative craft, and growing. We simply go offline 8 times a year for a half-day, a day, or a weekend workshop.
If you can afford multiple workshops per year, get signed up. If you can’t afford 8, how about 4? 3? Keep in mind, you can create your own workshop islands. You can put time on your calendar (and your people’s calendars) when you will be at the library, museum, nature center, beach, etc., unreachable for that time period.
Get out your calendar this weekend and start plotting your creative islands for the next 8 to 12 months.
Question: How would your creative life change if you spent time on 8 creative islands each year?
I always wanted to get away. Once I even tried to get into a graduate program, but they didn’t want my kind of work. Then I thought I would go on one of those travel and paint with a pro, but that was way too much money!
When my son moves to Italy maybe I can start a bed breakfast and invite artists to come and do their art. Of course I would be doing mine as well.
But for now I join meetups and draw and paint with other nice people.