No more starving artist stereotype

This is a personal review of the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. 

I’m a fulltime artist. I have a studio. I make personal art that I sell, but I also work on commission and teach freelance. My first 6 months of this year were very, very slow business wise which led me to believe the ‘starving artist’ stereotype. I may be doing very well compared to artists that aren’t able to make art their full-time jobs, but I was feeling low.

Something had to change. My confidence and feeling of success was related to my income and how much people wanted me to work for them. I never started working for myself to only work for other people. That was never my goal.

I told my then studio mate this and she picked up the book from her bookshelf and gave it to me to read.

Sprinkled throughout this blogpost are three videos that document my 12 week process of following the Artist’s Way program and in which you can see my transition from starving to thriving artist.

Write your morning pages and plan your artist date

So in short, this book is a 12 week program to unblock your creativity. Every week has a specific theme with a chapter to read through. I started my week from monday til sunday, so I read my chapter’s on sunday. The book gives you tasks and assignments with every week and tells you to do the ones that excite you most and the ones that give you the most resistance. The most important tasks that you should do every week though are the morning pages, writing 3 pages of unfiltered thoughts before you start working and the artist date. The artist date can be anything that lights childlike enthusiasm in you. Something you forget to make time for. It can be a visit to a museum but it can also be a walk through a flower field. 

I started this course without reading ahead. Every sunday I picked up the book and read that weeks chapter. I usually picked a day in the week where I did the written assignments and wrote my morning pages every day. If you don’t want any spoilers on what’s to come like me, I’ll tell you my short review. 

My review of the Artist’s Way

Personally, I’d recommend it. It’s a self-help book. It’s full of cliche’s, there’s a bit too much creative god-talking for me but I also didn’t mind that too much. Some tasks I didn’t care for. Some I cared for a lot. Writing morning pages every day is also a lot, but it’s also done in 15-20 minutes a day and it’s the most helpful of all the tasks she gives you. 

The artist dates freaked me out at the start - I made all of it too big and I felt like I didn’t have time to do any of it properly. So I just stopped actively doing them around week 3. Weirdly enough though once I stopped planning them I noticed I was seeking them out in my daily routine. If I walked past a bookstore that I would’ve walked past normally, I’d stop and think ‘oh this can be a short artist date’. There’s a local garden near my studio, I went there much more often. In the last weeks I even did a clay workshop and bought some tickets for fun events that I’d normally think I wouldn’t have time or money for. But writing my way through the 12 weeks made it clear that I actually need those activities in my life. I just needed to stop putting pressure on the act itself.

I’m someone that writes when they feel bad, so writing every day also when there’s nothing to write certainly made me feel better about writing. I’ve read people saying that 3 pages is a lot, but I’d recommend to stick with it at least in the first half. Once you get used to them there’s a rhythm to be found - the first page for me was mostly about my daily errands or things I wanted to do in the studio. Then the second and third were more about my feelings and what was underneath. 

In general I noticed I was being very mean to myself. And in writing those thoughts down instead of having them in my head I could really read how useless those thoughts were. It didn’t accomplish anything for me. I personally am already a very disciplined person, if I want something I’m going to work for it. So to have me, talking mean to myself, while I already do everything I can was just. Useless.

In the morning pages I started talking to myself, being nice. Showing compassion. Telling me that my thoughts were OK and that everything will be fine. Since I dated all my entries I could also track those bad days and see when they happened. Sometimes I feel like bad days take up weeks, and good weeks take up days - because I objectively had a journal to check up on I couldn’t fool myself with those bad thoughts.

Am I an unblocked artist now?

I think so. Is it because of this book? I don’t think so, but it certainly helped to give me clarity and go through the process a lot faster. I think sometimes as artist’s we think we are alone. And we are alone a lot of the time. I can get in my own head really easily and think that *I* must be the only person feeling this way, and *they* must be feeling much better because *they* are succesful. 

Reading this book helped me put those thoughts in perspective and realize that we are really all just going through the same thing. It won’t get any better. Imposter syndrome will still exist down the line, but we’re just adjusting and getting better at dealing with life. There’s a few name’s dropped in the book of some famous film directors, it feels like this book comes from a legit source that’s actually helped a lot of artists, so yes I would recommend this book. But only if you’re willing to put in the work yourself. 

You can buy the book via this link (affiliate) or get it at your local book store (even better).