Artists making Artists make Art

I am really appreciating the effect of living among other artists.

Sean has started doing morning pages and I noticed the positive effect this is having on my system this morning.

I headed up to my room this morning after breakfast and spotted him in the living room, beginning his writing. I smiled and nodded and proceeded up to what I had begun to plan for my day. I initially processed seeing Sean in the living room as an isolated event in the sense that I was separate and would not be influenced by his morning page writing. I have in other moments noticed aversion and resistance to acknowledging that he has been writing morning pages. Why would this be? The only way I can make sense of it is that it was an expression of my own resistance to developing a writing/art practice, even though I deeply want to. Steven Pressfield says it's inevitable. On some level, I was envious of Sean for actually doing it.

Moments after seeing him in the living room, I found myself upstairs, pen in hand, writing in my journal. I hadn't intended to do it. It had not been part of what I was planning for the day, even though I had felt a tug of yearning to do exactly what Sean was doing. It seemed that somehow, despite my resistance to slowing down and writing, the wise desire to do so took over and...there I was, producing!

Later this afternoon I found myself bundled up and heading out the door with a backpack full of watercolour crayons, a journal, and a camera. Right before I headed out I beamed as I told Sean, "I'm going on an artist's date". Meaning I was, in Julia Cameron's terms, going out to let my creative mind lead and interact with my environment accordingly, ultimately surprising myself. I can't help but think that the emergence of Julia Cameron's thinking in the morning hours via Sean's morning page writing influenced, if not the act itself of going out, then the way in which I understood and framed it: as an "artist's date". This in turn created the possibility to impact Sean positively: he got the chance to process my creative choice of use of time and energy this afternoon which could further inspire and influence his own art-making. Just his one-word response of "cool"to my announcement of the Artist's Date impacted me, in turn, enough to increase my felt sense of the momentum building between and among artists talking about making art! We are, after all, social creatures of habit and mimicry. Let's copy each other making art and talk about it!