Drawn by creative time
Striking the balance between working, sleeping, and eating (very important) is challenging enough for any person in search of reaching a kind of professional nirvana. Add to that the crazy concept of spending time with friends and significant others — generally “having a life” — and we challenge the capacity of our already over-full iPhone calendars. Being a designer, I feel like I’m always struggling to add one more piece to this puzzle: making room for creative exploration. It gives me such deep satisfaction when I’ve committed time to charging my creative batteries. Unfortunately this is the activity that is cut out of my agenda first.
For me, dedicating time to being creative means a lot of different things. It means time pulling out the pens, watercolors and gouache as well as thinking up conceptually interesting projects. (It definitely does not mean that I finally get the chance to help that friend out with a logo for his start-up that he can’t afford to pay me for. That falls in the “work” category.) I’m looking for creative side-projects that push me to refine my drawing, writing, illustrating and conceptual skills.
Once I sat down and articulated to myself that I needed to commit more time to independent creative work, I knew that I had to think up a project for myself. I defined the parameters: It had to be something other people would see to keep me on the hook (I don’t know many people that do well with open and endless deadlines), and it had to be a challenge to keep me interested. (I get bored easily and if it stopped thrilling and intriguing me then I would just stop.) The idea that took hold was creating a daily sketch blog called, The Best Part Of My Day. The challenge is to illustrate, what else, the best part of my day. It was really important to me that this wasn’t just another run of the mill blog, but something unique and with a point of view. Some days are more eventful than others (celebrating a one-year wedding anniversary vs. having clean underwear), but I’m charting (almost) all of them. The benefit of the project is two-fold: The more that I draw and paint, the better that I get. It also encourages me to focus on the positive of each day (something that jaded New Yorkers really need to do more of).
Thinkso bolstered my creative escape by consenting to giving me Fridays off over the summer. I looked at Fridays strictly as creative time. There were a couple in there when I wasn’t in NYC. I solved that by seeking activities that would fill my head with inspiration — a trip to the National Museum of Art in D.C., seeing an artfully directed movie, or drinking two frozen hibiscus margaritas at Fonda in Park Slope. (Okay that last one might be stretching it.)
Since my summer Fridays have ended, I’ve found it hard to continue with the same momentum, but I do reap the same amount of pleasure out of each drawing that I post. It’s extended well into my work life. Creativity flows a little more freely, concepts come with more ease and I have a greater appetite to find new and interesting solutions to design problems. I’m happier at work and at home, and getting better at what I love (I think I might have even gotten taller.) I like to think that I throw myself into painting and drawing the way that other people play sports. I’m competitive with myself, always striving to do better, and competitive with the millions of talented people showing off on the internet.