I’m Not Procrastinating
A wise man once said, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone”. Specifically, these words were immortalized by Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist Pablo Picasso who was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Pablo knew what was important: your art, not the dishes. Sure, it’s important to be productive and useful and maybe even a little bit tidy, but there are only so many hours in the day. If you prioritized keeping your house clean, it would probably look very nice and make your mom happy, but you’d never have time for creating art whether that be paintings, beautiful knitted scarves or handmade quilts.
I never wake up and think, “what am I going to clean today?” I wake up thinking about my art, what comics do I need to draw today, maybe today is a writing day, or maybe it’s a more practical “coloring stuff in” day, but no matter what, creating comes first. Maybe I’m not even going to draw today. Maybe today I’m going to work on a quilt. I save the dishes and the laundry for when I’m tired and my creativity is at a lull. If you are a night person, maybe you do the chores first, while you are still sleepy, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and your mind is ramping up. Either way, you should always utilize the time of day when you feel the most enthusiasm and energy to focus on your art.
Many times, creative people will get distracted by cleaning, household tasks or other minutia claiming they “need” to get these things done before they can settle down and focus on creating. This is really just a delay tactic because creating is hard and takes real effort. It’s easy to fold socks. It’s hard to look at that blank canvas or page, or that neatly folded stack of fat quarters wondering what form they are going to take. No matter how hard it is or how stuck you feel at the time, just get started. Start anywhere. Once you just get started, the creativity will flow. Remember, if you were going to die tomorrow, better to leave the dishes undone than to leave this earth with your art still inside you.
Blog post by Jen Lopez.
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