I was working in my art journal yesterday morning. I had been working on a batch of image transfers, one of which—the image of the bicycle with flowers—was going to have a place on this particular page, and the fingertips of the middle and pointer fingers on my right hand were kind of sensitive from scrubbing the top layer of paper off the substrates.
I love the aged, imperfect look of image transfers. Tactile activities and visually interesting focal points are my jam.
I looked up and noticed that my ceiling was discolored. Another weather-induced leak in the 125 year old building I live in. There was a pile of scrapbook paper and vintage wallpaper samples on the floor directly below the water-stained section of ceiling, so I moved those out of the way and went back to my desk.
I futzed and fiddled with this page for a while. It’s almost like my hands and my heart decided that unhurried was the pace of the day. I was content in that room, surrounded by my art supplies and the profusion of natural light that cascaded over my table. Everything else was going to have to wait for a little while.
We, as humans, need slow hobbies. Things we can lose ourselves in. Ways to engage in thoughtful repetition. Judgment-free avenues for personal expression. Low stakes ways we can fail and try again. Activities that help us come alive. And guide us back to ourselves.
I’ve been a slow hobby enthusiast for decades and those practices have never led me astray or let me down. I’ve never completed a scrapbook page or written entries in my journal and thought, “well shit, that wasn’t time well spent.” I’ve never regretted digging in the earth and watching the fruits of my labor emerge weeks or months later. If anything, these practices have proven far more reliable than many people I know.
Think about the feelings we get when we:
- read sentences in book that give us chills or make us question all we thought we knew.
- write things that accurately and passionately convey our unique lived experience.
- mix colors on a palette or splash ink on a page.
- heal our inner children with a beautiful concoction of childlike wonder and grace.
- clickety-clack those knitting needles together and feel the soft yarn slide through our fingers.
- capture a perfect photo of a bird in flight or a water droplet trapped in a spider’s web.
- lovingly (and successfully) nurture a sourdough starter.
- see a seedling that we planted with our bare hands start to sprout through the soil.
I don’t always get results that I love in my art practice. Quite the contrary! I’ve painted over many a canvas and thought unkind thoughts about art journal pages. There have been many blurry, unfocused photos on my camera and I haven’t yet figured out high-speed or low-light photography. As a creative, I’ve had countless flips and flops that eventually become part of my Artist Story; a timeline of not-always-linear progression. A record of my growth and emerging styles.
The thing about an art practice is that it is not always (nor should it be) about the results. It’s about finding something you love and nurturing it. Protecting your time so you can return to the activity (or activities) that feel as though they belong to you over and over again. If you give the activities that bring you joy and solace the oxygen and fertile ground they need, they will ultimately ground you. Refill and recenter you. They will become your escape hatch, the steady place you return to over and over again when life feels like it’s just too much to take.
This post is an invitation to rediscover, or find for the first time, that healthy hobby that can also double as a coping mechanism. Start something. Nurture something. Grow something. Try something new. Be curious. Then turn that curiosity into action. Your mental health, your capacity to deal with life’s 21st century stressors, and your tender, beating heart will all thank you for it. I promise.
XO
Jenn
P.S. Passing the gift of slow, intentional acts of creativity onto your children will bring you indescribable joy and satisfaction. I’m currently watching as one of my daughters slowly cultivates her journaling practice. She’s also reading more and turning to the ocean for solace when life feels heavy. My other daughter is starting a sourdough journey and is trying to get her own sourdough starter going. She also expressed an interest in doing texture-based art with modeling paste. We were going to have a mother/daughter date to pick out some materials for her today, but she tested positive for the flu, so we’ll do that when she’s fever-free and feeling better.
