Transcending the Creative Block

AWS, my artist friend in Montecito, has experienced the phenomena we call “artist block,” and has taught a class to a local Arts Association about ways to overcome “creative block.” He called last week to report the results of teaching that class and asked that I share his findings with my readers who, as he said, are no doubt “creatives.” 

What do other artists of any medium do when they feel unhappy – and stuck? The elegant artistic portrayal (illustrated) The Passion of Uncertainty by Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945), shows a writer wrestling with creative block, reflecting the painter’s own frustration. Pasternak was an artist who knew firsthand how painful “uncertainty” was. A portraitist who had to flee Russia and then Germany during WWII – he nevertheless went on to illustrate the classic War and Peace and other Tolstoy novels. He was also the father of Nobel prize-winning novelist and poet Boris Pasternak. Leonid Pasternak’s painting The Passion of Uncertainty feels familiar, as I experienced a creative writer’s block recently after the loss of a family member. 

Austrian psychologist Edmund Bergler first coined the term “Creative Block” in 1947, defining the exquisite anxiety that accompanies confronting a new canvas or writing a new work. In my case, because (prior to my writer’s block) I loved to write, well-known author friends recommended “free writing” –  the liberating technique endorsed by author Dorothea Brande in her 1934 book, Becoming a Writer:

Write or paint for fifteen minutes each morning – forget about grammar or structure, or composition, and avoid the feeling of commitment to your art – just write, or just paint. Do not fear a blank canvas or a white page and make no corrections.

Beat Generation writerJack Kerouac, along with Burroughs and Ginsberg, pioneered free-form spontaneous writing. 

Here are the tips AWS gathered from his class on overcoming artist block. AWS asked his students “what is YOUR remedy for becoming ‘unstuck’?” AWS reports that many blocked artists fall prey to self-criticism, apathy, resentment, fear of failure, and rigid, repetitive, negative self-talk. As I said, this topic is dear to my heart: After losing a loved one, all I could do was stare at the blank page. Many friends suggested that I loosen my thought process. Polling his class, AWS reported ten salient approaches to overcoming “creative block.” Here are those proposed remedies and action plans for artists who wish to become unstuck:

1. Do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. If you’re working on a large project, do a small one, take it to an uncomfortable place. “Go to an extreme,” my artist friend said, and then, “move back to a more comfortable place.”

2. Go as far away from where you are as possible. Leave the house, the studio… Observe chaos, see how it resolves in the natural order (waves resolving on a shore, for instance, or the waning of the moon). YOU are part of that order. You will win your work back from the uncertainty that you feel.

3. When you feel stuck, remember that doubt drives your work. ‘Stuck’ is a part of the discovery of where you will go NEXT.

4. Another artist friend said, “Adversity is your wealth; you don’t need to get rid of this feeling. It’s one of the sources of energy and wisdom.”

5. Ask your best friends about your project: Does this make sense? Are these concepts getting across? How can I improve on this project? Then listen – but don’t always follow the advice.

6. Go see art, listen to poetry or music. Make a mental note that the music or poetry or canvases you saw or heard were at one time new babies. Then write, paint, or compose – put things down… those thoughts are also NEW.

7. Go eat noodles with friends. Be a kid again with trusted folks.

8. Read an artist who soothed themselves through a hard time, such as those poems by Rilke or Browning. Creative people are sensitive – and they must KNOW they’re not alone and need to remind themselves of that fact.

9. When you feel stuck, or stagnant, make circles.  Draw them until you don’t look at them anymore. Make notes under each circular drawing about how the circle helped you (hypothetically) to get un-stuck… then take a hot bath. Feel as much of the world as fits in one bath, drain it all, dry off – and walk away.

10. Look at Renaissance and Old Master paintings, or read some Dante or Chaucer. Remind yourself that art and creativity are good, and that you – as the creator – need patience, and remind yourself that you are one of select group in this world.