I hope you enjoy reading these creativity posts as much as I’m starting to enjoy writing them! Feel free to read this later (I realize the first Saturday of the month falls on a major American holiday).

So last month I talked about burnout. It really resonated with a lot of you (I was surprised to hear that). We all experience it and quite frankly, we all wonder if there’s a way out. Is there an answer?

Yes and no. It looks different for everyone. As such I finally decided it was time to read Austin Kleon’s book KEEP GOING (all about making art in good OR bad times). It seemed the right time, right? And WOW! There’s a lot of meat and potatoes in that book. Lots of little things I took away from it and lots I will need to revisit. His books excel at giving tons of wisdom from a bunch of different resources (different than ones I usually read or encounter) in succinct little packages. If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, but you’re looking for solutions to burnout, there are a lot of great suggestions there. (I highly recommend The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron FIRST, but I also acknowledge that 12-weeks might seem like an overwhelming amount of time to some of you.)

While I got a LOT out of the book (maybe I’ll save some of that for later), there was one tiny section that really stuck with me. He talked all about play. I’ve talked about the importance of this before too. I’m going to share some snippets from Kleon’s book out of this section here:

Play is something we forget about as adults. We grow out of it or we forget how to do it. BUT we have to find the time (no matter what else is going on in life) to play. It became a theme the first month of the summer for me and I really began to dig into it.

I found new art tools to play with: paint pens on multimedia paper. I began to explore meditative art practices (i.e., scribbles and punching paper into patterns, etc.). I made art with NO purpose. Kleon argues that children excel at play because they can act with a “kind of lightness and detachment from their results.” I realized I was putting pressure on myself with “end products” in mind and needed to let that go. I had to dig into creating just for the sake of art.

I can already hear some of the writers complaining that this might be easier for artists to do. And I respond, “think again!” You can play with art tools too! I once heard Peter H. Reynolds talk about the creative difference between ages of children. Ask a group of Kindergartners who can draw and all hands raise. Ask a group of Fourth graders the same question and maybe 4 hands raise. We forget that we all once loved coloring with crayons, making a mess with paint, and goofing around with paper! Go back to your Kindergartner and just make a mess with junk!

Point in case, at the end of the school year, I was purging everything I could out of my classroom. I did NOT want to pack it all up (especially the junk I hadn’t brought with me into the classroom). I already knew I had a Herculean task ahead of me and I didn’t want to deal with it. There was a TON of paper everywhere in the room. So I started setting it out in a bin for the kids to use once their work was done. Every single one of my Kindergartners were ecstatic at the prospect of all that paper. Every spare minute they were allowed, they attacked it with sheer glee. One little boy surprised the heck out of me by creating McDonalds fries and a cheeseburger.

I asked if he too liked pickles in his burger (because of the green paper) and he was so offended. “NO!” he almost shouted. “That’s lettuce!!!” Ha! We need to learn to see with kids’ eyes again. Another boy on the spectrum without any previously seen creativity creating frankenstein-like people who were as tall as himself and he would walk them around the room beside him. Another little girl made an anime-like egg. Even my TA was astounded. “They’re all just having fun creating with paper!”

And as soon as my brain starts to ping on a topic, I never find myself ceasing to be surprised at how it’s a topic that other creatives are discussing too. It’s such a synchronicity thing that it blows me away! Not only was I thinking about this and playing around, but then Andy J. Pizza interviews Austin Kleon about his latest book (just released in June) and they talk all about play!! If you have time, listen to this in the background.

They even talked about a scientist (Stuart Brown) who gave a TedTalk all about the importance of play and how we actually NEED it to survive. If you’re deeply curious like I am, you probably want to listen to that too like I did (pay close attention to the story of the rats).

Needless to say, I bought Austin’s latest book and plan to read it soon (but haven’t had time). You see, I was mourning the loss of my creative summer and resolved to just spending the time “filling the well” and recovering (as we’d talked about before). BUT once I started to play, it opened up all sorts of things. I painted a snail waterpot I found with my folkart approach using mostly qtips.

I finished a cross-stitch project (I love to do it but rarely give myself time to do crafts that don’t push my illustration forward any more). I took a free 3-day “Summer Art School” and discovered a print for a shirt and a sticker for a local ice cream shop that I’d been dying to create for years. Which pushed me to create an Etsy shop (which I’ve also been wanting to do for years and I’m still working on some tech aspects). Which also pushed me to create my very first calendar (using my folkart comfort images) which I’ve also been wanting to do for years. I’m thrilled to see that taking a pause, finding time for myself to play, and just “fiddle-farting around” as Austin Kleon calls it in the interview with Andy J. Pizza has paid off in ways I never anticipated over the last month!

SO, if you’re struggling like I’ve been: find time to play. I highly recommend it!

NOTE: I won’t have a creativity blog in August as I will be traveling out of the country on a big trip. I’ll have plenty to update you on in September I’m sure! Look for more to come. 🙂