The Creative Cycle

Yesterday, after repeatedly going through all my favourite apps searching for something to watch and feeling increasingly more annoyed by my own lethargy, I ended up watching a documentary about Charlie Mackesy and the making of the book and movie ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’. It turned out it was exactly what I needed. 

I’m in the part of my creative cycle where things feel very slow and indecisive. I’m not really drawing that much and I’ve been feeling guilty about not spending a lot of time in the studio and letting get so much time in between substack posts. I felt I had nothing really interesting to say, like the fox in Mackesy’s book. The horse then reassured me that “Being honest is always interesting”, so here goes nothing. 

“What do you think is the biggest waste of time?” “Comparing yourself to others” said the Mole.
Like all things in life, being a self-employed creative person comes with highs and lows. My highest highs are when I’m in one of those delicious flow states, ideas and illustrations seem to flow from my pen and I just can’t seem to stop writing or drawing. My lowest lows are on days when I’m staring at a blank page in my sketchbook, nothing happening, feeling full of guilt and doubt if I’m even an proper artist. Thoughts like ‘Real artists are prolific and not lazy like you, real artists draw every day, real artist don’t play a truly unhinged amount of Animal Crossing instead of working on new ideas’ pop up like a sleep paralysis demon gone rogue.

It took me a while to realise what was going on and that I had been in this place before. I looked back at what I had been doing the last few months and found that I had been busier than I thought I’d been. I taught drawing lessons at a primary school, something I hadn’t done before and found to be incredibly hard but very rewarding, and I handed in the artwork for two book projects whilst also working part-time at the museum. I hadn’t been lazy, I just needed to recharge. 

 ‘We didn’t have big dreams, we just enjoyed existing.’
I always seem to forget that rest is a normal part of the creative process, a normal part of being human, but maybe it’s not so strange that we forget this, in this goal orientated, culture of accomplishment. When Mackesy talks about his childhood friend he says ‘We didn’t have big dreams, we just enjoyed existing.’ I found this so beautifully relatable. I love being an illustrator and an artist, but I also love being a friend, a sister and a daughter, I love being a reader, a crocheter, a gamer. It’s nice to be reminded that it’s okay to just exist and be happy with life as it is, and that I don’t constantly have to move on to the next project, the next bigger, better thing. 

“The greatest illusion”, said the mole, “is that life should be perfect.”
In the documentary Mackesy says, pointing to a stack of drawings; “All of these pads are full of mistakes. That’s the thing. You’re looking at basically a sea of error, out of which, if you keep going, you’ll find something that is worth keeping.” What stood out the most for me after seeing this documentary was the idea of the joy of making, creating for the sake of creating, without judging if something is good or bad. This week I will try and find my way back to that playfulness, to new ideas and start the creative cycle afresh. 

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Links 

Charlie Mackesy 

Charlie Mackesy Ted Talk

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

The animated movie
(You can find the documentary Behind Charlie Mackesy as bonus content on AppleTV)