What happens when you get out of your daily rhythm? All the constructs that hold you in place and give structure to your day. If you have a creative practice, no matter what it is, a daily rhythm is important to keep you in flow.

Sometimes this flow gets disrupted through any number of events, including emergencies, illness or unexpected demands on your time and energy. While these disruptions may be considered unwelcome, there are valuable lessons that can be learned.

I’ve been thinking about these challenges for the past two weeks navigating sudden illness, long travel and resettling back into home life. Returning to my art practice has been frustratingly slow and often despondency has crept in. I have had to remind myself of the little actions I can take to start my creative flow again.

Here are 7 actions which I used to help navigate through these disrupted times.

1.     Adapt: if you can’t create when you are most likely to get in the “zone”, find new ways to lure your senses back into flow.

2.     Cleaning/Clearing: the first thing is to make space for the new by clearing out unused clutter. Small acts of cleaning help clear the head and allow for new thoughts to enter.

3.     Sense seductions: subtle ways to seduce our senses into relaxing and letting creativity flow.

§  Sounds: listening to music

§  Smell: lighting incense or burning aromatherapy oils

§  Taste: making a cuppa or eating something yummy

§  Touch: playing with textures and materials that feel good in your hands

§  Sight: browsing through magazines or colour patterns

4.     Time chunking: Make those first forays into the studio short and purposeful. Do one thing only and build up to more.

5.     Beat the Blanks: the idea of facing a blank canvas or paper can be daunting. I use collage to help loosen up. Tearing up old book pages, maps and advertising catalogues gets my hands into action.

6.     Perfect/Imperfect: blast through perfectionism by creating some small thing for the fun of it. Dribble paint, make a mess. Explore one colour and then add another.

7.     Metaphorical actions: when you feel torn asunder or broken, mend something. Even darning a sock can settle the mind into the rhythm of healing. If you feel constrained, then find a plant to repot. Give it room to grow like your ideas. Put your hands in warm water, do the dishes, let the water and your ideas bubble up and flow.

So this is how I started. Tentatively at first, cleaning, clearing, putting away. Introducing myself back into my creative space. First forays into my daily artworks by cutting up a month’s amount of 10 x 10 papers. Collaging a map or two, then adding some colour. Getting bolder with my colours until the time and the paint started to flow. Putting on music and spraying the area with fresh lavender scent. Doing the dishes gave me ideas on what to submit for a looming deadline.

Small steps helped ~ and now to start processing the artworks I bought back from my residencies…