The World Needs Your Art by Fournier Danielle E.;

Author:Fournier, Danielle E.; [Danielle E. Fournier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Casual Magic: The Artist Date

This is from Julia Cameron’s fantastic book, The Artist’s Way, which I highly recommend. It’s a divine 12-week self-study course devoted to recovering your artistic self. This is one of her core exercises.

Here’s the gist: pick one outing a week, solo, that thrills your inner artist. It can be silly, dreamy, sweet, childish, daring, HUGE or simply surreal. The point is to honor your artist’s needs by making, and keeping, a date with yourself. No one else gets to join. And you really, really should keep that promise to yourself. It’s a commitment to your artist. Every living being deserves to give themselves true space to honor their authentic desires.

So pick an hour that no one, I mean no one, can steal from you. It can be less, but one hour of total self-care can undo hours of stress, frustration, longing, and everything else that drains you all week long. It’s long enough to dive into your date, but short enough that it can be justified by even the busiest of people. Feel free to write off one of your gym dates because this is relaxation, which falls into the health category, and therefore is just as important as an hour on the hamster wheel. (Consider this: if you’re less stressed, maybe you could skip a latte or two– and that’s the caloric equivalent of skipping an hour on the treadmill.)

I promise you that you will invent all manner of reasons to not do this, and I totally get it. It’s just a little fear masquerading as procrastination. What if I actually love it?, you think.

Ah. You might. You might have grandiose dreams of acts of courage like leaving your job, or some people, or some activities behind for far more fulfilling activities. Maybe you’ll skip the wine bar for a dance class next week, or maybe you’ll go for a walk with a notebook instead of surf the internet after dinner, or maybe you’ll decide it’s time to paint the wall you really hate in your home. Perhaps you won’t. Perhaps you will just add more fun to your week in an entirely new way.

But you will never know until you try.

Here are some Artist’s Date ideas I have tried to get you inspired:

Some were small, some were big, some were free, some were not. The thrill was the point.

• A foreign movie at a theatre

• Indian food for one with a book

• A trip to the zoo with a camera

• A surf lesson

• Fishing with bacon (or marshmallows), string, and a stick

• Fly a kite

• Paint an old chair

• Buy a gorgeous new plant and pot/plant it

• Learn boat repair with fiberglass

• Make raspberry jam

• Watch a ballet set to Sarah McLachlan’s music

• Go window shopping somewhere really lavish

• Make a sandcastle

• Put together a pirate outfit at a discount store; wear it somewhere

The sky is the limit. If you can dream it, it’s an Artist’s Date. If you are not used to doing

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