What advice would you give to a fellow artist who had lost creative and career direction? 🙂 I’ve experienced a tough year personally and I was wondering what steps you take to push through stressful times and also how you get back on track as a creative? 🙂
I receive this type of questions all the time and to be honest, I'm not sure either. I hope I know how too 😭 In the past few months or maybe more than half a year, I've been mentally drained and felt unsatisfied with every artwork that I produced, I just don't feel like drawing at one point. It's definitely not burnout because my freelance life is honestly quite relaxing, I get to choose what projects to take and arrange my schedule freely, I have lots of free time and probably only work like 2-3 days a week, my clients are all kind and nice to me, no stress at all. But somehow I felt empty inside, like something is draining away slowly.
When I had artblock in the past, I will watch some movies and shows that I like, read some books and do nothing for a few days and I will be fine after that. But this time is different, it's useless no matter what I do and it lasted for months, it's very frustrating and I just don't know what I should do.
I'm still finding ways to solve this, and I'm trying all kinds of things that I haven't tried before now - such as accept the invitation to do a public sharing at SGCC(which I will never consider in the past), learning a new music instrument, self publish an artbook, hired a personal trainer and start working out, and travel more. So instead of staying home and draw all the time, I'm trying to go out more and explore the things I haven't try before. I do feel a little bit better now and is able to draw passionately sometimes, but still far from what I used to be.
Or maybe being able to draw passionately sometimes is enough, I don't need to push myself too hard, right? Maybe it's because I keep seeing good art by other artists on social media all the time so I feel unproductive and guilty when I'm not producing art regularly. Maybe because I keep observing the world through a small hole so I'm unable to actually feel it and produce something that is sincere. Maybe I should learn how to live first before making art. Maybe I should take my time. There is nothing to heal but empty spaces to fill up. I'm still learning and I hope I find my answer soon.
I'm not sure if this answers your questions, maybe I have drifted too far away haha. Even if this doesn't help you, I hope I at least provided some sort of comfort. Everyone are different and has different paths to take in life, I hope you find your own answer soon.
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