On this week’s episode of Creative Space, we’re diving into Chapter 8 of Julia Cameron’s seminal book on creativity, The Artist’s Way.The focus for this week is “Recovering a Sense of Strength.”
There is so much to cover but there are three principles we’ll talk about: survival, the ivory power and gain disguised as loss.
My favorite quote from this chapter: “Stop complaining about the lousy curves you get thrown and stretch, reach for what you REALLY want.”
If you’re interested in reading The Artist’s Way and/or following along with the podcast as you complete the work, you can purchase it here.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, jennifer Logue, and just as a reminder for the next few weeks, we're going to be doing something different. On the podcast, I'm Doing the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for the first time. Last week we talked about Chapter 7, recovering a Sense of Connection, and this week we're diving into Week 8, recovering a Sense of Strength. This chapter covers a lot of topics, so I'm just going to touch on a few here Survival, the Ivory Power, and Gain Disguised as Loss. On the topic of survival, cameron says that all artists must learn how to survive loss Loss of hope, loss of face, loss of money, loss of self-belief, etc. It comes with the artist's journey, but it's important to remember that these losses can be turned into gains. In order to move through our artistic losses, however, we must acknowledge the loss and share it. Otherwise they become artistic scar tissue that blocks our artistic growth, and this happened to me many times, and there are so many scars I'm still working through. But one that comes to mind reading this is when I got diagnosed with epilepsy as an adult. Looking back now, and if you've been listening to the podcast, you know the story. But that diagnosis was the day I stopped seeing myself as a viable artist. I immediately sought out a 9-to-5 job and safety. I could play music as a hobby, but I decided back then that music just wasn't meant for me as a career and the pain of this loss I didn't fully acknowledge until starting this podcast because I didn't even realize it. But now I'm in the healing process and finding joy in music again and giving myself permission to be an artist, to write songs, to perform. It doesn't matter what's going on with my health. I'm still an artist and I need to create, and the more I do this work, the happier I am, the stronger and more confident I feel. The scar tissue is healing and it's wonderful.
Jennifer Logue:
Another topic Cameron addresses in this chapter is the ivory power, and wow, it is something I hadn't thought of before but really resonated with me. She opens up with this passage it has been my perilous privilege over the past decade to undertake the teaching forays into the groves of academia. It is my experience as a visiting artist that many academics are themselves artistic beings who are deeply frustrated by their inability to create. Wow, she goes on to talk about a teacher who was a gifted filmmaker who stopped creating, so he ended up channeling this energy into criticizing the work of his students. He became a dark shadow for them, what Cameron described as a creative monster. Can you think of anyone like that in your own life? I sure can, and having this perspective, I have a lot more empathy for these people in creatively authoritative positions who misplace their creative power by beating others down instead of lifting them up.
Jennifer Logue:
Julia offers guidance to academics when teaching young creative seedlings. It would be my hope that academics who read this book and apply it would do so with an altered appreciation for the authenticity of growth. For the sake of growth, in other words, as taller trees, let us not allow our dark critical powers unfettered play upon the seedling artists in our midst. She also brings up the point that for an artist to become overly cerebral is to become crippled, and I can relate to this. The majority of my college experience was critiquing the work of others rather than creating work of my own, although I tried to take as many creative writing classes as I could get away with. But Cameron notes that with the academic life, you learn how to deconstruct a work, but not how to create a work.
Jennifer Logue:
Anyways, the third topic I want to bring up in this chapter is gain, disguised as loss. Cameron notes every loss must always be viewed as a potential gain and it's all in the framing. I love this and if you think about it, the end of one thing is always the beginning of another. So, rather than mourn the end of something, why not get excited for what's next? Sure, we may not know what's next, but this is where trust comes in.
Jennifer Logue:
She asks us to ask a few questions of ourselves in times of loss. How can this loss serve me? Where does it point my work? We have to take the pain and transform it into energy, create something. If we don't, cameron says, pain not used profitably quickly solidifies into a let in heart, and that is the worst thing for our creativity and just to live a good life in general.
Jennifer Logue:
So when we face loss, cameron encourages us to take one small action to support our inner artist. Maybe it's buying your artist some flowers or baking something comforting, or go into a movie in the middle of the afternoon. This small act of kindness says to your inner artist I acknowledge you and your pain. I thought this was really lovely by being kind to ourselves. It helps us move through the losses rather than become hardened by them. It's like giving our artist a big motherly hug.
Jennifer Logue:
And I'll end this episode of the podcast with my favorite passage from this chapter Stop complaining about the lousy curves you get thrown and stretch. Reach for what you really want. I love that. I needed to hear that this week. Anyway, that's all I have for this episode of creative space. Next week, we'll be diving into chapter nine of the artist's way recovering a sense of compassion. If you're interested in checking out the artist's way by Julia Cameron and doing the work on your own, I've linked to it in the show notes. My name is Jennifer Logue. Appreciate you taking the time to listen to creative space. Until next time.