What Threatened My Play…How I Got in My Own Way

What was suddenly threatened? My play. My joy. My creativity. What was threatening all this? Me. I was getting in my own way. I was stuck in my head.

To get out of my head, I started to play. This was all scraps assembled with no purpose in mind.

At least that is what I thought until my muse showed me a very important message.

As I added paint, these words jumped out at me. I “erased” all the other words by covering them with paint.

This index card felt important to me. It felt urgent. But what do I do with it? Do I put in my art journal? Do I make a card to send to a friend? Do I leave it as it is? All the sudden there was pressure to make the “right” choice, the “good” choice. I was in my head. I know that is one of the quickest ways for me to crush the play and send my creativity running out the door.

I decided to choose trust over fear and flipped through my little journal. This is one of my treasured Gelli printing pages from when I was using gel medium on it.

Notice the word treasured…that is code for didn’t want to use it. When I get that way I know I am in my head.

I smeared paint on it. I let go and just used those fingers.

And then I didn’t like it. Oops.

Since it was just an Oops, an Outstanding Opportunity Presenting Suddenly, I grabbed a wet paper towel and wiped a lot of the paint off. Now I could definitely see where the gel medium was on there….

I knew I was getting back out of my head because the horror of it not being “right” didn’t bother me a bit.

I wanted less blue so I added white paint on it. Not a crisis. Not stress. I was playing again.

I got lost in my art journal play. Emails didn’t matter. The piles of laundry were irrelevant. The weeds in the garden would wait patiently because I was completely absorbed in artful play.

That artful play rejuvenated me in the best possible way.

Thank you to my muse for reminding me that I can get in my own way and reminding me that I can step aside and get out of my own way.

Supplies Used:

• Babies rubber stamps stamped on glossy cardstock
• Posca glitter pens for writing around the babies
• Dylusions small journal