creativity Archives - Ingrid Murray

Messy May 2023

An open mixed media art journal. A layer of mostly neutral collage (and one large teal painted paper) is topped with energetic marks and drips in black, neon pink, white, orange, and blue. Most of the background shows through.

Over the weekend I took part in a Creative Hour conversation with Caylee Grey, Meg of Meg Journals, Claudette Hasenjager and more than 100 other art journalers. Caylee is the founder of Get Messy, and Claudette, Meg, and I are three of thirty artists leading this year’s Messy May, a free daily art journaling project.

Connecting with other creatives is something I treasure. Sharing processes, challenges, inspiration, and habits reminds me both of how deeply personal creating necessarily is, and also how universal and innately human creativity is. I am always humbled and inspired, and leave more curious about and committed to my creative practice.

Thank you to all the participants for joining, and to Claudette, Meg, and Caylee for a fantastic conversation.

PLAY in Messy May

For me, creating is a practice of tapping into childlike wonder and intuition. There is no room in my art journal for criticism or perfectionism — only curiosity, joyful exploration, and reflection. As a Messy May featured artist, I encouraged participants to let go of expectations and tap into playfulness and possibility.

Check out the video above for a time lapse of my process, and some additional creative prompts to encourage playfulness.

And below, just a few of the many, many responses to the PLAY prompt. Click on any image to be taken to the artist’s feed. (If you decide to give it a go, please tag me on Instagram! I’d love to see what you make.)

Hey, Artist

Open mixed media art journal. A layer of neutral-colored collage is covered with energetic marks in teal, green, white, and green. Much of the background shows through.

I have heard from a number of people over the course of my own creative journey who’ve said something along the lines of “I’m not an artist, but I’m interested in starting an art journal [or painting, or exploring collage]. Where do I begin?”

First up: yeah, actually, you are an artist.

Creating is innate; as a species, we’ve been expressing ourselves through dance, sculpture, music and painting for tens of thousands of years. You don’t need a degree to make art, and you don’t need to make “good” art to be an artist. All you need to do is start.

I wrote on My Peacetree — way back in 2011 — about the creative process:

The journey to creativity is not a static one: we must always be searching, pushing, moving, and striving forward. There is no end to be reached — there is only new discovery, exploration, growth, stretching, and learning […]

Art is something which must be practiced over and over again. It is only through this we can really make it our own.

As to where to start: What art makes you pause and stare? Go buy some of those materials — cheap ones are fine. Try them out. Make mistakes. Experiment.

Seek out other artists, look closely at their work, and pull elements of it that you love into your own. (Don’t steal others’ work, though! Incorporating colors and processes and materials is ok; duplicating work is not. And always, always credit artists where it’s due.)

What do you like about your art? Do more of that. What don’t you like about your work? Do less of that.

And above all else, don’t apologize for your work or for yourself. Take yourself seriously and others will, too.

Bird by Bird

I just finished reading Anne Lamott’s insightful (and wickedly funny) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I hadn’t actually heard of her before picking up the book in a little library in my neighborhood — but her words found me at the right time.

I’m deeply curious about other creatives’ practices, and the writing process is still somewhat of a mystery to me. How can anyone take a feeling or experience, something so big and complex and nuanced, and capture it in something as limited as language?

But this kind of question can ensure that we never put pen to paper. Perfectionism, really, is the antithesis to play and exploration and learning. Lamott gives you permission to write badly: one of her first pieces of advice is to “write really, really shitty first drafts.”

“You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper,” she says. If you write and it turns out laughably awful, you are still doing something right. (Kind of like making ugly visual art: if you’re creating, you’re on the right path. Make ugly art, or terrible first drafts. Just don’t not create.)

The only thing to do when the sense of dread and low self-esteem tells you that you are not up to this is to wear it down by getting a little work done every day.”

Lamott also speaks about writing as a lifelong journey, with no fool-proof formula: you can only show up, pay attention, create terrible first drafts, seek feedback, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Writing, like any other kind of creating, is a process, one of self exploration and expression — and it’s the work (the verb), not the work (the noun) that is ultimately most valuable:

You’ll find yourself at work on, maybe really into, another book, and once again you figure out that the real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.”

(Emphasis is mine.)

Daily Practice

In June and July, I did the daily Index Card a Day (ICAD) challenge. In August, I posted here every weekday. What I found is that showing up is what leads to inspiration, not the other way around.

Here are some of my favorite posts from this month:

These wouldn’t have been written had I waited for inspiration to strike.

A daily practice is the foundation to creativity and innovation. Austin Kleon calls it “apply ass to chair“: regularly find time to sit down, and you’ll discover something to write about, or paint, or collage. Getting started is the hardest part.

Don’t wait for inspiration — just show up, and inspiration will find you, eventually.

Being Present

How much of your own life, of your own thoughts, are you missing?

Whenever I travel and face limited digital connection, I realize just how much my online habits have taken over my life. Last August, I was in Tunisia with my now-husband, visiting his extended family for the first time. Cell and internet service was limited, so I spent the entire week unplugged. I couldn’t snap a photo of the beach and immediately post it, then inevitably get lost in social media updates — so I snapped the shot and then returned to the present, actually enjoying the water and the company.

Usually, any time I have a few seconds between tasks, or I am waiting for something, even for a few minutes, I reach for my phone. I scroll through Instagram, or type in some answers in the NYT crossword app. I check my email, knowing that it’s mostly newsletters I won’t read and won’t respond to, just for something to do. I’ll check the weather over and over.

You are a priority

For years, I have practiced paying attention to the tiny things, the bees and the ants and the clouds and neighborhood kids laughing. But rarely do I give myself that same time and attention.

Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird by Bird about how so much of writing is sitting down and waiting, listening, and seeing what arises. “If we just sit there long enough, in whatever shape, we may end up being surprised … Try to calm down, get quiet, breathe, and listen,” she says. Austin Kleon has a similar mantra, shared by a former writing teacher: “Apply ass to chair.” Put the distractions aside and show up for yourself and your art.

The creative process requires us to be present. How much inspiration and intuition are we missing by keeping ourselves distracted? Why do we spend so much time avoiding what is right in front of us, or what is going on within us?

How I practice being present

“There is ecstasy in paying attention,” Anne writes. But to pay attention, to find that ecstasy, we have to tear ourselves away from all the things — TV, social media, notifications, news — that are tearing us away from ourselves.

I’m still learning how to be more present (and unlearning toxic avoidance), but here’s what works for me:

Embrace the discomfort. When we are used to being entertained and distracted every moment of every day, unplugging or sitting still is hard. I remind myself to sit with that discomfort, and not to run from it.
Get grounded. When I need to ground myself in the present, I do things that require me to be off my phone: get outside, go to the gym, meditate, or journal.
Get in the flow. I stop ruminating on the process or the shoulds, and start. I’ll put some paint on a page. Stick some collage down. Go full screen in a writing app and get some words out. If I show up, often the flow will follow.