This past weekend I had 2 artist dates!! I hadn’t had an artist date since the summer. An artist date is from the book The Artist’s Way where the author stresses the importance of having a fun date with yourself to get the creative juices flowing.
I went to the Hudson River Museum and technically I was with my husband but we ended up separating and looking at different exhibits. I went straight to the nature photography and he stuck with the landscape paintings.
I also watched the documentary on Amazon called What Remains about one of my all time favorite photographers/artists Sally Mann. I first heard of her years ago at B&H Photo during a photo critique of my work. They thought I would appreciate her work based on how I was photographing my girls at the time. They were right! Loved it! Controversial for sure, but also intense.
In the documentary she mentioned that she always photographs what’s close to home.
I had the urge to create so challenged myself to discover what’s closest to me – right outside my building.
The difficulty with being in familiar places is you take everything for granted. Most of the time you don’t even notice anything because it’s all too familiar. I had to force myself to really look and pay attention.
The following images were definitely inspired by both of these artist dates.
Remember whatever your creative passion is – whether it’s photography, painting, drawing, cooking, music or anything else, it’s best to create just for the sake of creating. Not every shoot or every painting has to be epic or your best work. You get better and flex that creativity muscle by continuing to do your thing.
If you’re feeling stuck in a creative rut, shake things up by doing something different or go someplace new.
What did you create over the weekend?
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