Five million copies sold
Five million copies sold, maybe more, and yet I'd never heard of The Artist's Way before a few months ago. Sometimes, life converges in those funny ways, you know? My neighbor told me about a book club she'd joined that might interest me, where they worked on this self-improvement book, with assignments and homework on a weekly, if not daily basis. It sounded tough and intense. Not long after, a writer friend said she was going to use the method from a book for the third time. It had gotten her out of a lump twice before. I was curious, so I looked it up, and even bought the book. It was called "The Artist's Way". I discovered later it was the exact same book my neighbor was studying in her book club.
Now, the more knowledgeable of you here have probably heard of it, if not used it already. If you find yourself in this category, feel free to skip the next section. But if you're like me a few weeks ago, and have no clue what I'm talking about, read on.
What is The Artist's Way?
twelve weeks of daily practice with your artistic self
For an official description, you should probably check out the author's — Julia Cameron — website. What I'm writing here is my personal understanding and take on what The Artist's Way is. It was created to "unblock" the artist in all of us. Because if there's one thing Julia and I agree on, it's that every single human being can create.
In her book, Julia provides new perspectives on how to unlock that creative side of yourself, whether you already know it's there or not. Each chapter amounts to a week of work, and by the end of twelve weeks of daily practice with your artistic self, you should have reconnected with — and perhaps healed — the creativity within you.
I began the journey last week, which means that so far, my knowledge of the book and its methods solely encompass what Julia shares in the introduction and the first chapter (that is, the first week of actually working on your "creative chakra").
My intention in the coming weeks, is to report back on this blog while I go through this artistic inner journey, in hopes that it will inspire your own creativity, and if nothing else, entertain you with my highs and lows on what I can already predict will be a bumpy road ahead.
In this post, I only want to address the general concept of The Artist's way, but you can expect twelve more posts on the topic, each dedicated to one week where I work to awaken my inner creator.
Morning Pages and the Artist's Date
Each week comes with its set of tasks and assignments to complete in order to unblock a specific part of your creative brain and self-confidence. I take these as complimentary: advised but not compulsory. Julia Cameron recommends to pick those that seem most easy, as well as those that seem hardest, and to leave the neutral tasks aside.
However, there are two exercises, meant to be used not on one single week but throughout the whole book, that are non-negotiable, in my opinion.
The core of Julia's method resides on these two tools: the Morning Pages, and the Artist's Date.
Morning Pages
Morning Pages are exactly what they sound like: every morning, you have to make time in your busy schedule (everyone has a life, right?) to write three pages, in long hand form. Three pages of what, you may ask? Of whatever crosses your mind. Call it journaling, mind dumping, meditating with a pen, complaining, unloading, going with the flow… It doesn't matter, so long as you write those pages. You can even write that you hate morning pages over and over again until you reach your daily target. But I doubt you'll come to that. The human brain is marvelous in that there is always something brewing under the surface, be it good or bad.
It doesn't matter, so long as you write those pages.
Now if you're a bit punctilious like me, you may tick at the measure of three pages: obviously, depending on your notebook's dimensions, your penmanship, your use of paragraphs or even of abbreviations, the amount of writing that you will have to do to fill in three pages will vary widely. My advice: bend the rules to suit your circumstances. But once you've set those rules for yourself, be fair-play and stick to them for the sake of discipline and consistency, two skills that I believe the Morning Pages will teach us.
I went with three pages because my own notebook is A5 format, which seems reasonable for a daily goal. I'm not the journaling type (and I'm not a morning person either), so from the get go this tool was the one I was most scared of. But that's the point of challenging oneself, right? We will see how I fare with the Morning Pages over the coming weeks.
The Artist's Date
The Artist's Date is much more fun, in my opinion. You have to book a time with yourself once a week to refill your Artist's well, draw inspiration from wherever you can find it. During that time, take yourself — your artist self — on a date. You're not allowed to let anyone or anything interfere on that date. Don't let friends or family tag along, don't let the date turn into fulfilling a chore… This time is for you, and you alone. Exciting! Though when I read this at first, I was at a lost: what does a date with oneself consist of? What am I to do? Still, I'm excited to let my creative side have fun, and reward myself for all the hard work of the week. This will be a real treat! And as Kirsten Vangsness and Erin Roberts point out beautifully in Episode 18.32 of Writing Excuses, we artists (which means, all of us humans), have three wells that need to be filled in order to find balance: the Commerce Well (making money to survive), the Art Well (creating, because we are human) and the Personal Well (take care of your health, everyone!). They say to "Take care of your Personal Well and your Art Well first, let the Commerce Well fill when it can."
let my creative side have fun
The way I see it, each well feeds each other in an infinite loop, such that your Art Well will be depleted if you cannot nurture your Personal Well.
My take on The Artist's Way as a whole is that it helps you refill your Art Well and your Personal Well in conjunction. The Artist's Date in particular gives you space to take care of yourself, as well as to find inspiration for the artist within.
On the Source of Creativity in All of Us
As I read the introduction to The Artist's Way, I got increasingly frustrated. One of the book's primary tenet is that we human beings are mere vessels for the Creator's work, with the Creator being --- you guessed it --- God. Now, the author does specify that those who do not share her religious views, can use it as a metaphor. And in theory, I do understand what she is trying to do by stating that we are just vessels: this removes responsibility and judgment on what we create, which in turns, we hope, frees the artist within to explore sides it never dared to before.
But I'm picky, and this explanation is unsatisfactory at best for me. First of all, the introduction mentions God so much, it's hard to ignore or pass it off as mere metaphor. Besides, if it were indeed just a metaphor, why not use a less loaded term, like a source or a force of creativity? It felt like I was being brainstormed.
There is an incredibly unique artist inside every one of us, and we should honor and nurture it.
Second, I disagree with the precept of where creativity comes from, and I think that lending its source to a higher power, while releasing some of the responsibility off our shoulders, also removes the beauty of human creators. If someone else is creating through us, then we cannot claim any hand in the creation itself. We cannot rejoice in what our brain has produced, because according to The Artist's Way, it is not our creation to begin with. We cannot show our loved ones a piece we spent hours conceptualizing, molding, birthing, and say "Look what I've done", but rather would have to say "Look what God has done". This to me minimizes the wonder of the human brain and how it has evolved over millennia to make all of us, the most creative beings on the planet.
Additionally, there lies a danger in removing responsibility from the artist for their art. If anything we create is the will of God and not our own, then we cannot be blamed for creations that hurt others, that propagate hatred, or that damage parts of the world we live in. For instance, imagine one uses a highly polluting chemical for a painting because it was "God's will it shall be so". So yes, it's good to relax and not put too much pressure for our creations to be perfect, but I don't believe the right way to do that is by saying the creator is someone else than our very selves. There is an incredibly unique artist inside every one of us, and we should honor and nurture it.
On the Ethics of Psychological Guidance (Or the Absence Thereof)
My other pet peeve with the Artist's Way, is that it makes heavy use (at least in the first chapter I've read so far), of tools that strongly resemble exercises your therapist might give you. It's interesting, and means one can delve deeply into one's self, but the big difference from actual therapy is that here, there is no safety net. There isn't a trained and trusted psychologist to catch you if you fall. If one of the exercises awakens a trauma that had been buried inside of you, you'll be on your own to deal with it. And that, in my opinion, is hugely dangerous. So, a word of caution: make sure to be well surrounded if you decide to go on this journey.
I know I sound paranoid, but I value mental health above all, and I want to make sure that everyone is taken care of.
Despite my naturally critical side, I am excited to challenge myself and follow through with the twelve weeks of The Artist's Way, and I do believe that in the end, my inner artist will come out of it changed, grown, stronger.
On this last note, I will leave you with my contract to undertake The Artist's Way, and will be looking forward to sharing my experience of the first chapter in the coming days. Stay tuned!
Hey Claire, I really enjoy reading your blog! Dating with your artist self is such a romantic idea! I would love to join you so that I will date with myself for 12 times. Morning (evening for me) pages sound like writing a dairy, something I have planed to do for a long time. To start off easily, I will try to write one page per day. By the way, Matcha is sooooooo cute!!!