Wrong turn down The Artist’s Way

A few weeks ago, some article mentioned Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and piqued my curiosity. It’s a classic with 200+ gushing reviews on Amazon. And, really, what creative person doesn’t want to “unblock.” Granted, I wasn’t feeling particularly blocked when I picked it up at the library, but there’s always room to be more creative, right?

For those of you not familiar with this book, it’s a “comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks.” The main tools are morning pages (writing three stream-of-consciousness pages about whatever every morning) and artist's dates (taking weekly alone-time to get inspired). As general concepts, both have been recommended to me by professors and other creative folks.

Sounds perfectly helpful, right?

Well, I found myself in a creative slump as soon as I started reading it. Maybe it was getting up half an hour early to write gibberish about how irritated I was getting up early. Maybe it was all the exercises in which I searched my childhood for the moment some villain told me I wasn’t good enough and destroyed my creative mojo. Maybe it was reading her florid prose or all the talk about how it’s God’s plan for you to be creative. Maybe it was the vaguely condescending attitude about careers (like journalism and advertising) that she considers “shadow careers” (i.e. practical substitutions for real art).

Whatever it was, it was not good. But I didn’t want to let it go. After all, so many people say this book changed their lives. Maybe I was just going through the purging phase. (Anyone who’s tried Retin-A knows your face gets worse before it gets better.) So, I trudged on another week, writing in my notebook and reading my affirmations each morning.

But it didn’t get better. I felt run down and idealess. And there was creative work to be done and no time to let this slump work itself out. So, I finally listened to my gut and took Ms. Cameron back to the library.

It took another week or two to shake off the residue, but I’m finally energized and back in the game. Ad icon Rich Silverstein’s talk yesterday helped tremendously.

The moral of this story: You can’t turn all your energy inward and expect it to reflect back at you.

Go now: "Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers" at AMOA

If you’re in Austin—and especially if you’re an art director, graphic designer, or anyone else who has to organize info in a visually interesting way—get to the Austin Museum of Art to check out “Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers.” Now. (Well, at least before August 15.) It’s well worth the $5.

Chris Jordan turns stats into art. Most of us have trouble grasping the giant numbers we read in the news — that 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags are used in the United States every hour, for example — but Chris Jordan lets you see just how many bags that is.

(Chris Jordan — Paper Bags, 2006 — Click to Enlarge)

An online picture doesn’t do it justice, but his website gallery has a pretty awesome zoom feature. Definitely check out Barbie Dolls.

If you aren’t in Austin, the exhibit (or another similar one) will be touring:

• College of Charleston, SC (Sept. 1 - Dec. 15, 2010)
• Simon Fraser University Gallery, Burnaby, BC, Canada (Nov. 6 - Dec.17, 2010)
• University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder, CO (Jan. 10 - April 30, 2011)
• Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene (Jan. 15 - April 10, 2011)
• Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene (Jan. 15 - April 10, 2011)
• Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (April 23 - Aug. 6, 2011)
• International Museum of Art and Science, McAllen, TX (Sept. 1, 2011 - Jan. 1, 2012)
• Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA (Aug. 29 - Dec. 11, 2011)
• Carleton College Art Gallery, Northfield, MN, (Jan. 6 - March 9, 2012)
• University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, (Jan. 27 - April 6, 2012)
• Science Museum of Virginia, Richmond, VA, (May 12 - Oct. 14, 2012)