Whether you call it a slump, a funk, a downturn, a slowdown, a struggle, a breakdown, a nosedive, a stall, a meltdown, a plunge, or just stagnation, I’ve been in one for a while. While I have multiple journals that are dappled with notes, sketches, and the beginnings of ideas, I haven’t actually recorded a new show or finished a new painting in months. Even this newsletter has taken a hit on consistency after more than 130 weekly entries. I know the situation will come back online — or at least I believe that it will — but at the moment, my normally overflowing trough of creativity is experiencing a bit of a drought. And here’s the thing — I know that I’m not alone in feeling this way. I’ve talked with a number of people who are experiencing if not the same thing, something very similar — and it’s not just people who identify as “creatives.” There seems to be a common feeling that we’re on existentially shaky ground or in unfamiliar territory and we feel like even the few things we thought we had some control or agency over are slipping. I know that’s true for me and for several of my friends. Maybe it’s also true for you.
In the summer of 1964, The Rolling Stones played a gig at the Danceland Ballroom at the Excelsior Amusement Park in Excelsior, Minnesota. In the audience was Jimmy Hutmaker, who was somewhat of a local fixture in the town. The story goes that the day after the show, Hutmaker went to Bacon's Drugstore for a Cherry Coke. Unfortunately, they were out of Cherry Coke and he had to settle for regular Coke, at which point he turned to the man behind him in line and said, “You can't always get what you want.” The man behind him was Mick Jagger and five years later, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” appeared on the Stones’ 1969 record Let It Bleed. Who knows whether the story is true or not. That’s not the point. The point is that sometimes the universe puts something in your path at just the right time and if you’re present enough in the moment to see it, it can change your life — or at least take it in a different direction.
A few months ago, I started photographing all of my paintings, partially as an archive for making prints available, but also with the thought that I might like to put together a zine. I love zines and have toyed with the idea of putting one out for years, but was never sure what the format or subject matter would be — whether it would feature photography, painting, writing, or some sort of mix of all of it. As coincidence would have it, the other day I was talking with my friend Maarten Rots , who I haven’t spoken with in a while. Maarten is primarily a photographer who produces a fantastic quarterly zine called March & Rock. He’s one of the most creative people I know, he’s wildly experimental with what he photographs, and he brings many of the results of his experimentation to the pages of his zine. Let me give you just one example. During lockdown, Maarten was unable to travel or otherwise get outside to make photographs, but he knew that he still had magazines to produce. So what did he do? He began to experiment in his studio with projections of light and color. He simplified his process and replaced architectural details with simple sheets of white paper, which he curled and suspended, then illuminated with slide projectors with sheets of colored glass placed in front of the lens. The resulting bodies of work are bold, graphic, and among my favorite issues from his 33-issue archive.
As I said, Maarten and I haven’t spoken in a bit, but his call couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. He brought me up to speed on one of his latest experiments, which involves a children’s camera that has a built in thermal printer. You can see the beginnings of the project on his Instagram and based on what he showed me, where he’s going with it looks really interesting. I shared some of the concerns I’ve been having about putting my own work out — what the zine should or shouldn’t be, how many issues I should do, how often I should put them out, and on and on.
As an aside, I know there were a bunch of “shoulds” in a row just then. It’s a word I’ve been trying very hard not to use, but it’s also a hard habit to break. Try it for yourself sometime.
Maarten laughed at me running down my list of concerns and he encouraged me to just relax and start. He said not to worry about the next one, or the one after that, and instead to just focus on this first one. As for what it should be, “that’s up to you,” he said. “But it almost doesn’t matter, because the people who are going to buy it are fans of you and of your creativity. That’s what they’re buying, the chance to see you being creative.”
Gary Vee has famously said, “Document, don’t create” when talking about his approach to making content. And if you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m not a fan of the word “content” because it runs the risk of homogenizing every piece of creative output down to some sort of lowest common denominator. A video, a piece of art, or a song are all treated similarly if not equally on social media, because the goal is about getting eyes and ears in order to keep you on platform to support advertisers. Of course I’m simplifying it quite a bit, but you understand where I’m going. That said, I think in this case, Gary’s advice is solid. I don’t know about you, but I have notebooks filled with ideas for things that I never did simply because I spent too much time in my head thinking about them instead of actually doing them. Maybe they succeed, maybe they fail, but you never know unless you actually start, right? That’s one of the only things we do still have control over.
Sean Tucker has been encouraging me for a long time to share more of my process and I think I’m finally coming around to it, especially since jumping back into processing photos and mocking up potential zine layouts. I’ve started working on ideas around how I can document at least some of my creative process and share it with you. Yes, the zines are part of that, but they don’t offer as much in the way of process since they’re basically the evidence of the process. Other options may be short videos, occasional written entries in a new section of my Substack, or some sort of hybrid that changes based on what I’m trying to share. I’ve also been mocking up a new version of Process Driven in the background as a standalone website, in addition to kicking around relaunching the podcast. I’m imagining that the site could be sort of a creative hub where I can post articles about other creatives (maybe even by other creatives), podcast episodes, and all of the behind-the-scenes materials, rather than fragmented across multiple social media platforms that honestly I don’t have much energy for anymore.
It’s funny how a conversation or two at just the right time can help you find your way out of the dark and into something new, or at least give you a new perspective on things you’ve been circling for what feels like forever. I am in the position where I have an abundance of free time and skills and interests across a variety of creative genres. Where I seem to keep getting stuck is in thinking that everything I do has to be something in and of itself. Somewhere along the way, I bought into the notion that everything needs to be a final, fully-formed piece — actually “product” is probably closer to the mark, since a lot of my hangups around my own creativity are about money, not ideas. And I know it’s ridiculous because it discounts any notion of creative play, which is vitally important and is one of the reasons I love talking with people like Maarten who haven’t lost it.
I think it’s also one of the reasons that many of us pursued the arts to begin with — it certainly wasn’t to make money. One of my favorite jobs I ever had was doing regional theater making about $300 a week. Nobody’s gonna retire on that kind of money, but I was making things every day and I was surrounded by a company of massively creative and talented people who were also making things. Art and creativity can change when we start to take them too seriously. The older I get, the more I think that it doesn’t matter what you do as much as it matters that you do. Once you get that sorted, the trick is to document it along the way so you can share it.
QUESTIONS
Have you ever come back to a creative pursuit that you previously stepped away from? How did it go?
Hit reply, leave a comment, or email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.
I absolutely resonate with this. I published a post on burnout yesterday (shameless plug right here https://ellewalker.substack.com/p/reviving-my-creative-muse), and how it's crippled me creatively, to the point where I hadn't made a single thing for months. Just the act of writing has pushed me into action again. I'm now feeling optimistic and my creativity for the first time in months. All I had to do was bare my soul in public!