Self-imposed challenge

Self-imposed compassion

It is a chilly, early morning. The sun is peeking through my window and only my cold fingertips as the skuttle across the keyboard. There is steam wisping up, dancing, from my cup of Darjeeling tea. I have to keep reminding myself to put my shoulders down this morning.

I am on day 9 of the challenge I set myself for August.

I set this challenge with caveats (ALL the caveats) in a way to protect the sometimes (AKA often and very) fragile relationship I have with failure, and then rejection. 

So far the caveats have not been needed (you don’t HAVE to draw every day, you are not a failure if you only get 20 drawings done, the world probably won't crumble and you die a thousand deaths and you won’t disappoint EVERYONE EVER if you don't get 31 drawings done. We go big with the catastrophising here).

But I do love it when I can hold a dichotomy in my hands and feel at peace with it.

I am tired.

Creativity is a full body experience, and the daily five hours or so of very intense focus and physical act of drawing is tiring. I mean, you know, not surgeon intensity - I can put it into perspective - but it is tiring.

But at the same time, I am energised.

I want this practice to last forever. I want to draw ALL the beings. I get up in the morning and am excited to figure out who will fall out of my pencils today. I am absorbed in wonder at the very simple but vastly complicated act of laying down strokes of pigment to create a life-like rendering of the most divine wild beings.

I can hold both in my ever expanding heart and my weary animal body, and both can be true.  

I often speak about creativity as an act of self care, of self compassion. In fact it is one of the basic tenets of my life philosophy as well as my Wild-Hearted Artist's Ecosystem ™, and this challenge is some self-imposed self compassion. I talk about self-compassion so much because I need to hear it too. I have often found it very difficult to be kind to myself - all my kindness is always gifted without limit to others, but I am learning that much like cabin crew advise, you have to put your own mask on before you help others. 

I have to think about what self compassion looks like in this challenge. I have to promise myself to listen to my body, and if I really can’t do a day, I will be compassionate enough to be ok with that. And not beat myself up about it. And not try to “catch up” later. And not say that I am ok with it but really really not be ok with it at all.

I have a feeling that a lot of you will know what I am talking about here.

I have also set a time limit. This is actually a really beautiful act of self compassion, because I can get sucked into details (and, ahem, perfectionism) and work on a drawing until all the life has been squeezed out of it altogether. 

Boundaries. Boundaries are self-compassion, and funnily enough this one was pretty easy to set. I have a self-imposed time limit, a boundary, of 4 hours per drawing. I want there to be unfinished edges - and that is harder than you might think to do! For me at least. I want there to be some of the looseness I see in the sketches of Ray Ching and Ezra Tucker which is a challenge when you are wound as tight as I often am. But like anything, like unwinding, like unravelling, it can be learned. It is a skill. 

Loose edges, self compassion, all skills we have to - I have to - practise and practice.

And then practise, that is also self compassion. I have a desire to get into a particularly self admired gallery one day. It is on my wish list. I can wish until the cows come home, as my Pa would say, but without practise and honing my craft, it won’t happen.That is one reason for practise, but not my only deeply personal reason. The other is to get better at seeing. At perspective - both linear and philosophical. At wondering. At celebrating the incredible breadth of life I could spend a lifetime exploring and barely scratch the surface of. At connecting to my own animal body and to the diversity of other living beings that share this moment in space and time with me. And with you.

I got up this morning not knowing what to write to you today, and it turns out I wanted to write to you the things I wanted to write to myself. It is always the way, isn’t it. That is why I teach, as well. I want to learn the things I teach. I want to practise the thoughts behind it all. I want to learn from those I am walking beside and teaching too, because we all have so much to share, so much experience and heart and wonder, and compassion, and room to learn from and with.

I do this work to learn more from the wild world. I do this work to learn more about myself and remember that I belong - with all my hard edges and sticky thoughts and soft heart and determined focus and myriad of beautiful and fractious flaws. To embody the ferocity of a Swamp Harrier focused on movement far away. The playfulness of an Asian Small-Clawed Otter on their back in the sun rolling a stone between hands. The calm and gentle beingness of a Black Rhino lazily and thoughtfully chewing a green leafed delight. The curiosity and grounded assuredness of a Sumatran Tiger, with the might of a beast but really just a very large purring housecat. 

Creativity is connection.

Connection to a personal creative well, to your subject, to your tools, to the wild world. To you. My creativity is a way to connect to you, dear reader.

And for that alone, I celebrate every challenge, every swipe of pigment over surface, and every letter that makes words written here with heart and with love.

These (wild)heart-felt drawings are available for adoption for only $250US, and 20% of each sale of these graphite portraits, that is $50, will go to Raptor Care NW, an organisation caring for and rehabilitating birds of prey in the local north west area of Tasmania.

A new one is (hopefully!) added each day!