After planning this residency for months, I learned you really can’t plan everything. COVID had other plans for me. Now that I’ve recovered (mostly), and have pushed back my residency 1 week and I’m revisiting my planning and preparation.
I’m leaving my home in the middle of winter to make art for a month in Puebla, Mexico, alongside other artists and under the guidance of a mentor. I’ve never done anything like this before, and there’s not really a roadmap. There’s no 4-week plan, syllabus, specific learning objectives, etc. I am setting the course of these 4 weeks. I’m deciding what to work on, when, how, and what I want to get out of this.
It’s incredibly freeing. I’m giving myself a gift unlike any other I’ve given myself before. It can also be daunting. It’s nice when people tell us what to do sometimes; what to focus on, what we should be learning, what problems to be solving.
I’ve been planning this trip for months– since May. I’ve been planning what project I want to work on. I made a 4 week plan for myself. There’s pressure for this time to be productive since I’m now a freelancer and don’t always know where my next paycheck is coming from. I want to accomplish it all. I want to make x amount of pieces and I want them to look like y.
All of this pressure has been creating a lot of anxiety about this trip, so the other day I decided to set it down. I sat down and set a whole new list of intentions for this time. Here’s what I came up with.
Be present, and take it all in.
“What if I get there and I can’t be creative? What if I have brain fog + fatigue from COVID?” Then so be it. You can’t plan for life sometimes. Shit happens. In a recent session with my therapist, she suggested, to me to lean into all the feelings that come up while I’m there– the good and the bad. I’ve put in a lot of planning already. I’ve made 4 packing lists, I’ve created a statement of work. I’ve set goals. It’s time to set down this over-intellectualizing and let all of that work simmer how it may. Trust the process. Trust myself. I’m looking forward to being present with myself, with Puebla, with new people, and with my art– whatever shape it may take.
Process over product
The Arquetopia program director sent over a 34 page manual to review about my residency– rules, guidelines, things to think about. Something they mention more than once is, “All of our programs are process-based, not product-based...” This is a foreign concept to me as a trained designer. Everything in my education was about both. Yes, process mattered so much, but as a means to create something very tangible that solved a real problem. It’s a breath of fresh air to enter into an experience that isn’t placing expectations on me to make a crystallized finished product and instead wants to celebrate the journey and all its winding roads.
“All of our programs are process-based, not product-based...”
- Arquetopia Residency Program
You can’t plan for creativity
Creativity isn’t static. I can’t plan for what is going to inspire me while I’m there. And that’s the best part. What if I get there and see a color I’ve never seen before on a street I’ve never been down and it totally changes my approach to my work? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Creativity also has conditions (I’ve learned about myself at least). Creativity conditions can’t be met if I’m in a state of overwhelm, stress, anxiety, etc. This time will be just as much about finding balance in my practice through exercising, trying new methods, setting down pressure (and freelance work) as it is about the art itself.
Some parting thoughts:
The experience is the product. Learning and growing is the outcome
Don’t let ambition get in the way of being present.
Don’t let the pressure of capitalism hijack this gift.
It doesn’t all have to get done.
If it’s meant to be it’ll be.