Craft is the hard work. Connection the reward
Do the reps.
Hello friends
I have been painting lately.
A lot.
Here’s a view of my studio workbench.
My studio is chock-full of paintings at various stages of completion, as I go full steam ahead towards a series of exhibitions coming up over the next few months, with deadlines in April, July, September, December (more details of those in due course) as well as making new work for galleries and commissions, and a couple of new collaborative projects in early development. Amongst all this I’m also making time for my lovely coaching clients, whose own creative work is deeply inspiring to witness and support.
It’s busy, for sure, but it’s also a joy to be so fully immersed in this work. The sense of creative and professional connection I’m feeling right now has been a long time in the making. There have been long years, whole decades even, when it has seemed like I’ve been working in a vaccuum, plugging away quietly with nobody paying much attention.
But I have come to recognise that those quiet times are important too. They are the times when we develop our craft and ground ourselves in a solid commitment, a devotion even, to our creative practice, whatever form it takes. And whatever response it does or does not receive from others.
As Kae Tempest writes: “Craft is the hard work. Connection the reward.”
They go on:
“A good craft is built on solid foundations, years of practice and experimentation that can be relied upon at all times to steer you through the creative process. Craft is the thing you develop while you’re waiting for connection to show up. Whole weeks pass so quiet and slow, you don’t know what’s wrong with you and you pretend everything’s normal and you get on with editing the manuscript or practicing in double-time, but in the quietest, lowest parts of your consciousness you hear the voice saying, It hasn’t come today. I havent felt it, and it leaves you spongy. Waiting for a friend who doesn’t call, going through the motions, chipping away at it. Free-writes, first-person monologues from the perspective of minor characters, sixty four bars on the same half-rhyme. Keepng the mucles toned, but not enjoying the reps.”
So if you’re feeling like the connection hasn’t come for you today (or this month, this year) maybe this is just your time to do the reps, tone those creative muscles, to get and stay ‘match fit’.
And even if you’re not called from the benches, the quiet, steady devotion to your practice that can only come through time, will connect you to yourself, your place, to your own values and priorities.
As for me, I am immensely grateful for the opportunities that have come my way, for the support for my work, and most of all, for the warm connections it brings me.
Thank you for subscribing, for reading, for replying, sharing and commenting, for supporting my work and being part of this conversation.
And here’s a little video of me at work last week on two little paintings, of a moonlit cloud and a sunlit cloud, for a very special private commission.
As you can see, my copy of Kae Tempest’s little book is now a much thumbed and annotated studio companion. I highly recommend it.
The Life Raft Co-Creating Community
Come and do your reps in company. Join us for our weekly creative co-working session on Zoom. It’s very simple. We just say hello at the start and say what we plan to work on and then leave our cameras on and work together in companionable silence. We start at 3pm UK time and finish around 4.30pm. Every Monday I’ll share a recording to the paid subscriber chat.
That’s all for this week!
Sam
"The sense of creative and professional connection I’m feeling right now has been a long time in the making."
Bravo! 👏👏👏
Your writing always sets me thinking, thank you. This time it is the nature of craft, and the way over time skills become embedded and tools become an extension of ourselves with familiarity.
Sorry I’m missing Life Raft this week, I’m on Granny duties with one of our brood.