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Your creative practice as an awesome, limitless force
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This week, a treat from the archives. Enjoy!
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I conceived of the Arch a couple of years ago. As someone who has had many significant breaks in their creative practice, it was revolutionary to think about my art as something steady and continuous. I found that no matter how far away my practice felt, if I simply showed up to it in earnest, I would feel fully back in it, like reconnecting with an old friend and feeling no time had passed. It got me thinking of the present as a conduit for the future, summoning the future to it rather than ever actually arriving there. If I could use the present to connect my experience (past) and potential (future), it would all feel connected again, and I could get back to making art without all the drama and self-doubt.
Do you want to see how it works?
Part 2:
3 key things to know about the Arch
- Where you are now is supported by everything you've ever made or done AND everything you will ever make or do. Like the top of a physical arch, the present is suspended, like floating free, and structurally sound asf.
- The journey from what you have made is only connected to what you will make by where you are right freaking now (aka, the present). No other way for your past and future to connect.
- The Arch doesn't move, though projects and goals move across the Arch. You're always in your now now, if you catch my drift. The Arch is constant and steady and always contains these three things. Moreover, where you are right now (the present) is always securely held by what you have made (experience) and what you will make (potential).
In short, your practice is every part of this, everything you can see, everything you've done that's led you to this moment—and everything you can’t see, everything unknown that's yet to come.
Take a moment to feel the magnitude of that. The power of your awesome, limitless practice.
Cool, right?
Now, grab your journal 👉👉👉
=> How do you feel when you imagine your present moment, wherever you are in your creative practice, being supported by the two eternal forces of seen and yet-to-be-seen?
=> What lets you feel safety in the wake of your unknowable future? What thoughts bring you excitement about it?
=> What does it change to know that your life's work isn't a product or a single goal but an unending process of becoming and unbecoming?
=> Where do you feel that power and connection to your practice in your body?
=> What do you realize is closer now than it appeared before?
Part 3:
Devil is in the meaning
We tend to make lapses in creative work mean something about ourselves, our commitment to our craft, or our destiny in the world.
I come to the Arch the most often when I feel stuck and frustrated. Like, when my body needs to rest, but I feel pressure to work and be productive. Or when I break for too long, am too long in transitions, or get caught up in something else longer than I planned to. The Arch reminds me to not make a circumstance mean more than it does on the surface.
If I'm having a hard time getting into the studio because I'm busy with other life things, I remember the Arch. Then I can say, "oh, right: I'm not in the studio because I've been busy with other things." Not because my best work is behind me; not because I'm not destined to keep being an artist; not because I don't have the drive of a "real" artist. See if I'm not a "real" artist, I have no reason to get back in the studio no matter how much pressure I put on myself.
No matter where I am, I am still in my practice; I am still an artist. Being busy with other things is either temporary or fixable. It doesn’t mean anything permanent about me or my craft. If I feel disconnected from my practice, it only means I need to prioritize remaking that connection. Nothing more.
Or, sometimes, if I'm feeling trepidation about my next project or series, I might stall out secretly hoping that I can skip ahead and start making the next project after that one, which will be executed from more experience (the experience I'm trying to skip over acquiring in the present, tbc). Then I'll think of the Arch and remember that the only way forward is through. If I need to make 9 bad piece so the 10th is successful, that's just the price of entry. And I am so willing to pay that.
Whatever meaning I might ascribe to where I am right now, it doesn't actually have any bearing on the beautiful mysteries and possibility waiting for me in my future. It's merely the bridge to that next place.
It's not my place to judge it, but it is my job to cross it.
Part 4:
Lessons to take forward
Here's what I want you to know from thinking of your creative practice as an arch—
Your practice is never lost and it’s never finished.
You can let go of the idea of "making it," because your work, your practice, your challenges will always continue in the arch—whatever is done makes room for whatever is still undone.
There is no arrival, only arriving.
Celebrate your tenacity and resilience: You made it here!
You are exactly where you are supposed to be right now. The necessary bridge between the past and the future.
May referencing this simple diagram create boundless freedom and faith in your work.
The world needs it.
Psst! Got questions about The Arch? Want to know how to use it to feel freer moving forward in your creative practice? I'm so here for that conversation! Hit reply and ask me.
Love + solidarity,
Sam
P.S. - My brain is buzzing with thoughts on the anniversary of 9/11, the most pressing of which is love and solidarity with Muslim fam in NYC and everywhere. There's a lot to be said around grief and resilience in this city on the anniversary of September 11th—and even more to be said about ongoing state-sponsored Islamophobia, policing, and surveillance that, 25 years later, has yet to be reckoned with in any meaningful way. I highly recommend reading artists' reflections on the war-on-terror and what life was like the days after 9/11 in SWANA communities.
(Also, can we retire the f*ing lights already? It's really bad for the birds.)
Sam Sundius | life artist & visual coach
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