Episode 086: Is Your Inner Artist Sleeping? (+ how to wake them up!)
Hello my dear creative soles. Thank you so much for listening to Never Wear Boring Socks. This is a podcast for artists, creative people, and people who are not totally sure if they identify as creative but are creativity-curious. My name is Maria and I’m an artist, poet, herbalist, feng shui practitioner, and creativity guide.
Today we’re going to talk about how to tell if your inner artist is sleeping, and what to do about it if they are. But first, of course, I’ll give you a little update on my socks: they I have to say they really don’t look that un-boring - they’re just sort of brownish with a vague sort of pattern - but they are super comfy, which I think is really pretty exciting, and I’ve also had these for I think four years? I definitely wore them back when I was recording this podcast with Anna a couple of years ago. And that’s quite impressive for socks I have to say, especially because these are kind of my go-to socks for hiking and walking in the summer…so I would say well done, unassuming comfy socks. And I count all of that as not boring.
And in case you’re new around here it’s probably weird to find a podcast that the tiles’d about socks and I’m talking about art and then I’m talking about my socks, but basically the idea is that your sock choice can be a way to inject a little bit of creativity into your everyday. You can always make a creative sock choice which in my mind is a non-boring sock choice.
So moving onto today’s topic. I want to know: is your inner artist sleeping? First, I want to talk about who your inner artist even is. I believe we all have an inner artist. I think we all have various aspects of ourselves that can be activated in certain settings or with certain activities or practices. For example, when I’m recording this podcast, I feel like my inner guide is activated, along with my inner performer…we all have these different roles that we play in different settings. And one of the roles that we can choose to play, or another way to think about it is one of the energies within ourselves that we can choose to tap into, is our artist.
When we’re young, our inner artists are really active. I encourage you to take a moment to think about what you liked to create as a kid. Did you like to make up games? Did you put on plays for your family? Did you bake cookies? Maybe all of the above? I remember when I was little I would spend hours every day creating - I wrote stories, I drew pictures, I made up entire families and names and storylines for all of my stuffed animals…and it was truly delightful!
And I find it kind of funny that as adults we struggle to feel creative, when as kids it comes so naturally to us. It’s like over time those voices that told us our creative work wasn’t good enough, or it wasn’t important enough, or that being an artist isn’t practical, or whatever other messages we received - it’s like those things slowly sucked the energy and vibrancy out of our inner artists, until they fell into a long, and rather dull, slumber.
How can you tell if your inner artist is sleeping? First, if you feel like you’re not sure if you even have an artist inside of you, they’re for sure sleeping. And I promise they’re in there somewhere. Even if you don’t believe me. Also if you’re struggling to feel inspired, or you feel like you’ve gotten really good at working but you’re not very good at playing anymore (which is something I’m definitely very experienced in), that’s another sign your inner artist might be sleeping. If you just feel creatively stuck, like you aren’t making the kind of art you want to make, or you don’t know what kind of art you want to make, that is another sign that your inner artist is sleeping.
But - not to worry, we can definitely wake your artist up. We just have to nudge them out of their slumber and start to nurture them. One of the ways you can start to do this is to find ways to play. I know it can sometimes feel intimidating to just sit down and make art, especially if you’ve been feeling out of touch with the artist side of yourself for quite a while. And I think framing it as play takes some of the pressure off. And creativity doesn’t like to feel pressured so i think that’s a really good thing.
And playing of course sounds pretty fun and easy like every little kid knows how to play - but a lot of us as adults have kind of forgotten how to play…so if you’re not even sure where to start, I would suggest following whatever piques your curiosity. For example, I’ve always loved interior design. It’s not something I’ve pursued professionally or in my education, but it’s always been really exciting to me and it is I will say an interest that I neglected for a long time. So recently, as I was thinking about ways that I could bring more play into my life, I started getting back into interior design - I started reading books about it and watching home tour videos on YouTube, and it’s been super fun. And if you’re wondering, like how does learning about some random thing relate to your artist and actually creating things and making art? The answer fir me is that it’s inspired creative ideas and projects. One of the things I felt inspired to do after getting back into this love for interior design was to make mood boards to go with each of my feng shui-inspired botanical illustrations, if you’re familiar with those, they’re on my website if you want to go check them out, thephilosophersstem.com, and this mood board project was quite fun and creative! I’ll definitely share those at some point when I get around to it, I think it was a really fun way to blend my art with this passion…and, so there’s that side of it, and then I’ve also been thinking and planning some creative ways to make the most of my current home and my future home, and starting to really do some creative design thinking based on this learning and percolating that I’ve been doing. So while it hasn’t turned into a big project just yet, it’s planting the seeds of some future projects and it’s getting the creative wheels turning in my head.
And getting the creative wheels turning is really huge - even if you’re exploring something that seems unrelated from the kind of art you end up making or the kind of art you think you’re going to end up making, I really truly believe it all feeds into each other. This is something I actually get really excited about, blending my different passions and interests and creative hobbies. Like for example when I was doing my feng shui certification, I kind of melded the information I was learning there with what I was learning about in my herbalism apprenticeship and also with my art, my visual art, which is what led to the botanical illustrations connected to specific feng shui intentions that I mentioned a few minutes ago. And I didn’t know when I started studying feng shui or herbalism that I was going to combine them in that way - it just kind of happened organically once I started pursuing the things that were interesting to me.
It was like once I made space for all these different things in my life and in my brain, they all just kind of found each other which was really pretty cool. So I think it’s okay to not know exactly where it’s going to lead. I think that’s part of the challenge of this leaning into play is that we don’t know like we’re not working towards something in particular. I think that’s what hard about it because we like to be productive, we like to feel like we’re making progress, we’re doing things, we’re making things, and taking a step back to watch a home tour video on YouTube or go for a walk in a pretty place or these little things that inspire us but don’t necessarily feel like they’re leading somewhere, those can be kind of challenging to make time for. But I think if we let ourselves explore those things they can lead us in really really fascinating directions that we didn’t even know we were going to go in.
So I would encourage you, if you're wanting to get in touch with your artist, if you’re wanting to start to wake them back up, because again I promise they’re in there somewhere, here are some questions to ask yourself as you start to move in that direction:
What is one thing that has been calling to you for a while? What’s something you feel curious about and want to learn more about?
What kinds of things did you like to do as a kid? And what might those things translate to in terms of things you could try exploring now?
How can you start to explore one of these curiosities? Could you find a book? Listen to a podcast? Maybe sign up for a workshop?
And then as you’re thinking about these things, notice if you are trying to turn them into something “productive.” I’m most definitely guilty of this. It’s really easy to try to figure out why you’re drawn to something or how it’s going to play into your life or how it might be part of your career or whatever…but I invite you to maybe play with letting go with a little bit of that pressure and just see what happens if you embrace play with no ulterior motive? And I definitely want to acknowledge that that’s hard…but I am challenging you and myself, this is very much for myself as well, because I have a hard time with this like I said, to just try it. See what happens.
And if you would like some help waking up your inner artist, I invite you to schedule an Awaken Your Artist call with me. The link is in the show notes - it’s a 30 minute call where we’ll figure out what’s keeping you stuck creatively and we’ll get you set up with one action item to really start to get in touch with that artist inside you who is craving a wakeup call. And for now I’m offering these calls for free, so you really have nothing to lose, a free call 30 minutes, you’ll come away with an action step. If you’re wanting to feel more creative and make more art, I look forward to talking to you. And feel free to send me an email if you have any questions. My email is hello(at)thephilosophersstem.com. You can also send me questions on Instagram @thephilosophersstem.
Thank you so much for listening, my dear creative soles. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to share this episode with a friend and/or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I so appreciate you choosing to have my voice in your ears - it really really means a lot. I look forward to talking to you soon, and in the meantime, remember to never wear boring socks.
