Transcriptions are autogenerated and therefore may contain errors
Margo and I have been friends since elementary school. She works now for a large TV streaming service as a graphic designer. In fact, you've probably seen her work and just didn't know it. Like when you binge your favorite TV shows. Recently, I caught up with Margo when I was back in South Carolina and after we had chatted for a bit, she invited me back into her sun porch where she worked.
“I can't wait to tell you about what I've been working on. I just know this is gonna make it onto your podcast.” She said,…She knows me well. She led me through her sun-filled home into her studio and along every physical space that could hold a sheet of paper hung or sat a watercolor painting… abstracts mostly, but the occasional landscape in Margo's signature dramatic style. I gasped.
“Wow, Mo, these are beautiful." “I discovered the most amazing thing.” She said. “I was feeling creatively, dry, stressed with all this intense design work. And I realized quite dramatically that I no longer experienced that little stomach flip. When I started a new graphic, the blank slate looked treacherous and even boring instead of engaging and exciting, like it used to feel.”
“So I decided in my free time that I would explore a new medium and what better thing to use when you're feeling dry, but water. And here's the thing she said. What I love most about watercolors is how thirsty the paper is. I held the corner of one of the pages in my hand and felt it's texture. Its tooth.”
They call it. She said it's not only made from chips of recycled wood. It's laced with cotton cotton. That's just waiting to drink the color. It made me remember how thirsty I used to be too, to create, to make something that I cared about. This podcast is for Margot is for anyone else living through a dry season.
It's for artists looking for solidarity on the road of creative recovery. This show is for anyone looking to debunk that tortured artist stereotype, for those who want to believe that the creative life can bring us deep satisfaction, healing and even joy. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Meredith height Estevez, and this is artists for joy.
The podcast. Each week I will share stories of artists seeking joy. We'll explore how so many travelers along this, the artist's way have left us bread, crumbs wisdom and inspiration that can help us stay joyful on the journey this week on the show, creating in your season. Are you in a dry season? Are you in a sleepless night season or retirement boredom sitting at the top of a roller coaster?
I'll explain how naming and claiming the season of your creative life can help with managing your expectations, setting goals and finding joy. I'll answer a listener question about how to get started when you wanna write a book, plus give you something to consider this week, but first here's some more.
When I was a kid growing up in rural South Carolina, I had a CD collection that would rival even the most loyal Sam goody spin thrift genres, Broadway, musical Christian. Billy Joel jewel train and of course, loads and loads of classical Beethoven, Schubert Bach Copeland Copeland was always my favorite.
These were the days of the portable CD player. Remember those? You had to hold it super still, or it would skip by the way. I'm just imagining people trying to go running with those . That seems impossible. As long as I had my headphones and that Sony portable disc player and a healthy stash of double A's.
I was happy long car trips to visit my grandmother in Ohio, lying alone on my bedroom floor, staring at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to Appalachian spring over and over. Wondering when I could blow this joint and move to a city. Music was my getaway car to steal a phrase from Ann Patchet. I remember once my uncle picked up my headphones and pressed play, when I had stepped away from my stuff while we were on a family vacation.
And when he heard the opening track of the chorus line soundtrack, he told my parents, I'm not sure what that kid is listening to. It just sounds like some man yelling out dance moves. . I was kind of embarrassed if I'm honest, but it was a moment that I'll never forget because it was just so clear that my music was mine.
No one else got it. And no one else had to, it was like those CDs were dispatches from some far off. From my future self, the place where I was, most me, those discs were spinning hope, hope that that moody season of adolescence would pass. My actual life would begin. What season of life are you in this question or concept is something that I read recently in a book by Kindra.
Adachi more on the book later. But she believes that naming your season of life is a powerful way to overcome overwhelm and reduce disappointment and guilt. And I love this idea having just left the newborn season closely followed by the breastfeeding season. I now find myself walking into a whole new.
A phase. I'm still defining back when my now one year old son first arrived, I listened to Kendra's book on audible, and I realized that I had to stop putting pressure on myself to do well, pretty much anything beyond keep the baby alive and fed. If the house got tidied great. If it didn't great, it was not the season for a tidy house or a morning routine.
For that matter for everything. There is a season. Maybe we caused some of our own suffering. By not living well in our season for artists living in our season can be hard for a couple reasons. For me as a classical musician, which is a very competitive field. I think so many of us live in, in this season of hustle, hustle, hustle, everything has to happen right now.
I should be practicing. And the answer to how much are you doing is always not enough. One more gig, one more degree, more, more, more. We live in this perpetual season of intensity auditions scrutiny, perfectionism, you can't stop practicing even if your mother has cancer, even if you're experiencing an injury.
And this is how so many artists, I think end up with broken relationships with themselves and with others, we don't listen well to the season of our lives and we keep up a breakneck speed, no matter what so many artists I coach nowadays believe something I believed for so long. If only I could, then I would be happy if only I could get a full-time job playing music.
If only I sold this many pieces of art, then I could rest. Then I could relax. We spend so much time thinking about then that we forget to live well now in whatever season we're. For other creative people and maybe this is you. They blame their season on the lack of productivity or even any creative action.
They say, I am too busy to be creative or prioritize my creativity in this season, but I will someday. And yet they look around and it's been 35 years since they wrote a single line of poetry. Maybe it's not that you're too busy. Maybe you're too scared. Naming your season of life helps you get honest about what matters and it can help us stop making excuses or being victims of our circumstances, too.
It simultaneously helps us see what is and helps us realistically explore what might be. Now, living in your season doesn't mean you stop caring about what isn't possible. Now. It's just that you choose to prioritize some things that matter over other things, because everything important. Can't always matter for every season.
It's like setting yourself up for success. It's like taking care of yourself. Like you'd take care of a friend anticipating their needs. The best part of living this way is that it allows you to recognize that however things are now, it doesn't mean they will be that way forever. It makes hard times feel more manageable and it helps you make small shifts that could have a big impact on the next season.
So, what are the trademarks of your life right now? Where is your energy going? Where is their breathing room and where is there very much not. What expectations are you putting on yourself and are they realistic? Are they possible now? Or here's another good question. What's something you did recently that really disappointed you.
How could you adjust your expectations, your schedule, your goal. To live better in the season that you're in. Here's an example. Maybe you keep trying to sell your art online, but one thing after another keeps delaying it, the website crashes, you can't take high res photographs of your work and the right lighting, because you're never home before dark that's because your day job is so crazy.
How easy, how is your season affecting your creative impulse? What is possible creatively in the season that you're living. I think the secret to living well as an artist, regardless of your season of life, is to seek creativity, not as a thing, which you need the perfect circumstances to accomplish, or as the center of your life's purpose so much so that it's intertwined with your very identity making you hustle beyond what is healthy.
What if it's neither of those things, but more basic and simple. Synonymous with that watercolor paper of Margot. What if it's just as simple as drinking when you're thirsty, this makes your creative practice more fun and satisfying, like a, a good seasonal beverage. We have hot chocolate and winter and lemonade and summer.
But you know what we do in every season we drink because we're thirsty and creativity is just another impulse and an urge, a craving that can quench longing in us and give our life. Color and flavor, regardless of what we're going through, regardless of the season, whether it's a career endeavor, a side hustle or something you dreamt about when you were a kid, you were thirsty because it's a basic human need regardless of your season.
And look, sometimes it may mean just writing a few lines of poetry as you drive to and from the hospital. Other times it'll be hours at the desk or in the studio ripping through a whole pack of watercolor paper in a week. But listen, a small sip is almost always possible. And maybe that sip is just what you need to feel a little more like yourself to sustain you through the driest season that you've endured yet.
Maybe it'll reconnect you with that childlike joy you used to feel when your whole life was ahead of you. As you lie on the floor, listening to Copeland. If you had told that girl that she would one day, get to hear Billy Joel and Joel live in the same week. She would've probably died. but that's what I did.
My husband and I are taking advantage of this season. That is the summer music scene in Detroit. And my cup run, if over and you know what struck me about those artists besides well that they like me are getting older. What struck me is that regardless of their life season, they have not stopped writing songs.
Billy Joel is 73 years old. He's written over 121 songs in his lifetime. 33 of them hit the billboard top 100, making him one of the best selling music artists of all time. Jewel wrote her first big hit, who will save your soul during a season of busing for money. When she was living in her car in San Diego, they have lived through Grammy season and hit song season.
And they likely had times when it was unclear. If their creative talents had completely dried up, but you know what, they kept creating. Maybe what you're making in this season, isn't bringing you the notoriety or attention you deserve. The one song you are writing now might not be the one that makes it on the radio.
Maybe you're in a season where even writing a whole song feels completely impossible and you feel sad that all you can do is think of a few lines here or there. Put it on the notes app of your phone, but that's enough. Take small sip whenever you can keep going. Maybe this isn't the work of art that will change everything forever.
But maybe it'll do something better. Maybe it'll keep your company, let it satisfy even a little longing, the little thirst in you that makes you want to make something you care about. Like that first sip of water on a hot day. Let your life be laced with hope like that. Crisp cotton paper, just waiting for you to drench it with color.
I'll be right back.
Today's listener question is one from someone on Instagram, they asked Meredith I have these dreams of writing a book. I know you are doing that too. And I'm wondering if you can share where I should even start. I keep buying journals and pens and opening files and trying to develop a consistent routine.
And then just can't seem to keep it up for long. I'm starting to think that this ship has sailed. Thanks in advance for your help. Sincerely longing in long island. Thank you so much for that question. I am so glad you asked . I'll tell you what my writer, friends told me when I first admitted to people that I wanted to write a book, regardless of what you wanna write.
Non-fiction fiction poetry, children's books, and maybe, Hey, maybe this goes for even non-writer out there. The first step in making all your creative dreams come true is developing a creative routine. If you wanna write a book, you have to. Period regularly, small sip. Now this is where asking the question.
How does writing or creating fit into my season of life at this juncture? And be real. What's possible. That book I mentioned earlier by Kendra Adachi is called the lazy genius way, by the way. And I probably cite something that she says in it with coaching clients, literally every single session. So read that for more tips on how to live well in every season, but for now just know the secret to writing a book is to start writing.
Well, you may ask what do I write anything everyth? A journal entry, a blog post, an Instagram caption, a heartfelt letter to your child, just right. I have seen it happen in so many people that as soon as they start satisfying, even a small creative thirst, they want more do it regularly with discipline, but also with devotion.
Writing a book, creating a body of work. It starts with a repetitive, consistent gulp of creative action. Let me know if that helps now for today's Koda. I'm sure I wasn't alone in feeling completely blown away by the images that returned this week from the James web space telescope. The brilliant colors, the sparkle, the other worldly view of the cosmos, it was just spell binding.
And the thing that gets me is the time travel aspect of it all. Here's a quote from the New York times to look outward into space is to peer into the past light travels at a constant 186,000 miles per second, or close to 6 trillion miles per. Through the vacuum of space to observe a star 10 light years away is to see it as if it existed 10 years ago.
When the light left its surface, the further away a star or galaxy lies, the older it is making every telescope a kind of time machine that was always out there said Jane Rigby, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard space flight center and the telescopes operation manager. We just had to build a telescope to go see what was there.
So my question for you today is this, what more is there to see in this season of your life? Those pictures of space are just one minuscule snapshot of the vast cosmos in one moment, one glimpse of stars that are 10 light years away. Whose likeness has likely changed by now the fleeting seasons of stars as they burn.
So what if it is with you? What if your creative practice is the telescope you can build to show you everything that has been there all along. And here's the most amazing thing. We feel a kindred nature with the stars because we're made of that same dust. Let it remind us of all that is discoverable within each of us.
Let our creativity be the exploratory work that stretches time, making us somehow believe again, in a force larger than ourselves. Shining the light of hope in the face of the darkest black hole seasons of our lives. Like a north star we can follow straight on to morning.
That's it for this week's episode of artists for joy, it was written and produced by me, Meredith height Estevez. This podcast is made possible by the generous support of Kirk in the Hills church in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and by listeners like you, the show is sponsored by artists for joy, LLC, where we offer workshops classes, and one Toone coaching for artists looking for a more joyful creative life.
Today's music features works of Schubert, and Chopan played by SU young Cho and bleb Ivanov. Our theme song is by Angela Chi. I'll be back next week with another musical meditation episode for you, which will help you more clearly define and explore the season of life that you are in. And if you haven't already clicked subscribe, so you won't miss an episode.
And if you'd like to receive my emails, you can do so by clicking the link in the show. If you haven't already, can you also take a second to write us a quick review? Wherever you listen to your podcast, it helps us move up the charts and find more listeners like you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next Friday.
Today's sounds of joy is a little snippet of my daughter, Eva singing her heart out in the car the other day I managed to catch it, which is rare. Here's hoping you feel the peace, love and joy, like a river in your soul too. Enjoy
Can you sing for me, please? I love hearing you sing that song. I love peace of joy, joy.
I got peace in the river. I got peace in the joy river. Peace in the river. So
that's amazing. I love you.