Why I Always Make Time For Art
Early motherhood brought with it three intense shocks: A love beyond any I’d felt before. Labor. (Cleaning, cooking, and caring for children consumes a shocking amount of time.) Judgment. Many shared unsolicited advice on how I must be as a new mother, and that relinquishing hobbies and even a career I love sits within that.
This month launches a new motherhood chapter with both my sons in high school. In those 17 years, not much has changed with the love nor the labor. I intensely love both boys. They are my sun and my moon. I still feel social pressure to put aside my happiness and self care to mother, but certainly less than before, because I’ve challenged those notions.
Despite time pressures — juggling motherhood with a career in journalism and academia, and now coaching and writing — I’ve maintained art most days. Why? Because art and creativity fuel me, bring peace, calm, and powerful guiding ideas. This week’s essay muses on how I’ve countered judgments and prioritized art — no matter what — and the gifts and opportunities art brings me, which help me at work, too. You can listen to this essay via my Sage Sayers podcast by clicking here.
Gift One: Art Aligns with My Values
Through certifying with the delightful Yale Course of the Science of Happiness and Well-Being, I discovered my top three strengths included kindness, creativity, and aesthetics/beauty. (No wonder I quickly dissolve and feel lost without art!) If creativity sits within your core values, then, research tells us to feel more happy and content, honor these values daily for ultimate bliss.
Gift Two: Creativity and Art Improves my Health
Art and creativity, (in my case abstract painting and drawing of portraiture, landscapes, botanicals on paper, wood, rocks, and/or tile), can seem indulgent. A surprising high-blood pressure read at a routine doctor visit when my boys were still young challenged this idea. I bartered with my doctors to let me experiment: Bring art up from a weekend hobby to a daily one. One month later, how did my blood pressure read? Perfect. Art became my medicine.
Spread this finding across humanity and who knows what might occur? European traditionally-trained professional fine artists I’ve met tell me that artists, musicians, and writers survived the Plague and other disasters longer than most. I suppose it’s because their very livelihood brings calm and with that our immunity goes up.
Gift Three: Creativity and Art Connects Me With Others
Art can feel solitary; and yet, painting and drawing taught me children feel fascinated with adult artists. Wherever I sketched or painted — parks, lakes, or football games, children gathered around, many insisting I sign and gift them my work, which they hugged like a masterpiece. Far from selfish, taking time for art inspires others to do the same.
I found my children stayed safer and felt more loved with me as an artist. I often chose rock painting because of the gradual processes which require space in between: Painting the base. Decorating. Lacquring. Laying them out became a visual reminder to come back and do a little more.
From this, they too learned creativity. From ages 1 to 8, we co-authored six photography books of our adventures and their love for trains, construction, and trucks. We co-produced a documentary essay on my youngest son’s tendency to bolt (the Runaway Baby). And we co-created an illustrated book on a character, Chicken Charlie, a young North Carolina boy who kept his pet chickens, even when neighbors complained. Via a YouTube channel, we captured on-the-scene spot reporting of my boys and their friends catching frogs, rolling through puddles in their Big Wheels, and chasing ducks. The action-filled channel, a collaborative creative outlet for years, became a quick hit with their friends.
Gift Five: Art Helps My Business
Surprising benefits to my work have come from my stubbornness to maintain art all these years:
- Breakthroughs. My decision to go to coaching school and self retire from academia came to me within a painting frenzy
- Learning, experimentation, and discovery. That particular breakthrough (perhaps my biggest yet) came from experimenting with alcohol ink on tile. I heard the voice of my Sage to go back to school to train to become a coach when etching ink with bramble.
- Clarity. Painting a few moments can unlock blockers to problems. That earlier example unblocked a problem consuming me for years.
- Accountability. I determined during coaching training, a guided meditation to meet my wiser, elder self to commit to learning portraiture, something I really sucked at. Now three years later, I’ve improved (not mastered), but certainly feel more confident.
- Stamina. I feel energized by sketching, painting, designing and often sketch portraits between coaching calls, thinking and contemplating. I show the client the portrait after and they’re thrilled.
Art and creativity’s a big topic with my clients as many feel work’s not enough to fulfill us. For happiness, creativity must be a part. I know art serves as one of the three legs of my stool. Without it, I’m wobbly, tottering, and not my full self. That reason alone incentivizes me. Whether it’s fishing, tennis, or playing music, or writing poetry, make time for your bliss. You’ll feel more balanced, stable, and may find surprising clarity on big problems when you least expect it.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains immigrant leaders to become more confident, concise, and mentally fit communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and coaches worldwide with BetterUp.