The Artist's Way Week 11: Recovering A Sense of Autonomy and Trusting Our Artist Child
Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
So far in The Artist’s Way, we’ve worked for 10 long weeks to rediscover our inner artist and build the practices and strategies needed to continue on this path of creative discovery. As we get closer to the end of the 12-week journey, we’re now focusing on some ongoing ways that we can nurture our artist child and fully embody the artist that we’ve become.
In Week 11, we’re looking at the ways in which we can unapologetically be ourselves and lean into the practices that protect and nurture our artist child.
After going through Week 11’s reading, I personally walked away with three key points that really hit home for me, and I’d love to share them with you in hopes that they will also serve as guidelines for you - especially on the days that you start to question yourself, your art, or the creative path that you’re on.
1. Don’t let money or or other external factors determine the worth of your art.
As you’ve been going through The Artist’s Way, you might be considering ways monetize your art or build a business around it. But be on guard, because when money starts to become a factor, it has a crafty little way of infiltrating the way you feel and think about your art.
When we let dollar bills validate our credibility as an artist, we start to focus more on whether our art is selling or how much it’s selling for, rather than focusing on process of creating the art itself. Over time, this mindset can provoke a multitude of fears: the fear making bad art, the fear of rejection, and the fear of failure (just to name a few). These fears can overpower us to the point where we start making art based on what seems marketable, or worse yet, we just stop creating at all. What starts as a small feeling of doubt can really poison our “well” and become a huge block in our creative process.
Julia reminds us though that we need to protect our creative practice from these external factors and let our inner artist guide us instead.
“[We] must learn that as an artist [our] credibility lies with [us], God, and [our] work. In other words, if [we] have a poem to write, [we] need to write that poem - whether it will sell or not.” - Julia Cameron
We cannot let dollars (or follows or likes or any other external measure) determine the value of our art. Validation and guidance needs to come from our inner artist and God alone, and we should never let any other factor keep us from creating what we’re called to create.
Forget about the outcome and remember that creativity is its own reward.
2. Always put your artist child first.
Even as we become seasoned artists, we must always do whatever it takes to protect our artist child and foster a mindset of creative play. For some people, that might look like taking a long walk every day to clear their minds from daily distractions. For others, it could be designating a physical space that welcomes creative exploration. Everyone’s artist child is different, and it’s important to listen to the needs of yours.
Putting your artist child first also means prioritizing time for your art, taking creative play seriously, and surrounding yourself with people who can understand and support you through your creative endeavors. It also means writing your morning pages, going on Artist’s dates, and indulging in creative luxuries.
Wherever your art ends up taking you, the one thing to remember is that your artist child should always be the priority. Spoil her, protect her, and encourage her to keep creating. As Julia says, “Creativity is oxygen for our souls.”, and our inner artist is the gatekeeper of that creativity. Guard it with everything you’ve got.
3. Be authentically yourself.
“To be an artist is to recognize the particular, To appreciate the peculiar. To allow a sense of play in your relationship to accepted standards. To ask the question “Why?”
To be an artist is to risk admitting that much of what is money, property, and prestige strikes you as just a little silly.
To be an artist is to acknowledge the astonishing. It is to allow the wrong piece in a room if we like it. It is to hang on to a weird coat that makes us happy. It is to not keep trying to be something that we aren’t.” - Julia Cameron
I love this quote so much. It reminds us that being an artist might mean we don’t fit in with the norm, that other people might not understand us, that we might be judged, that we might seem peculiar - and even still, how all of that is perfectly ok.
I have to remind myself of this often because I tend to worry a lot about what people will think of me. But as artists, we need to stop paying attention to things like convention, trying to fit in, or being accepted. All of these things are not as important as just being true to ourselves and expressing that truth in the world that we create around us.
When we prioritize the demands of our inner artist and really step into who we’re meant to be, I truly believe that that’s when the true magic begins to happen.
We need to stop letting external demands or expectations stifle our creativity. We need to be brave, proud, and unapologetically ourselves. Be proud to wear those dingy pair of sneakers that make you happy and just continue to create art that is authentically yours.
Over the course of 10 weeks, we’ve put in a lot of work to unblock our inner artist. And although we’ll be faced with lots of trials and tribulations along the way, I hope these reminders can help us get back on track when we’re feeling a bit lost.
In the end, I think the biggest takeaway is that we need to constantly check in with ourselves and make sure that we’re channeling our inner artist - the artist child who creates freely, boldly, and abundantly. When we focus on that, then everything else will fall into place.
Excited to meet you back here for our final week, Week 12! See you then!