There was a large period of my life where my first thought upon waking was “Where can I declutter today? What can I let go of?” This was before the great Marie Kondo came on the scene.
At that time, my favorite books were The Joy Of Less and The Simple Living Guide. When I discovered these books it was like my brain expanded. Discovering simplicity and minimalism exploded my life in a good way.
Letting-go is my favorite way to clean – let go of things so you don’t have to clean them, or under them. We become owned by our possessions.
So… how to be a creator whilst also wanting less? A few tips:
1) Be careful with what is allowed to
enter the
house and take root.
2)
Create only what I love, why create something I’m not proud of to sit
around? Keep recreating or paint over the canvas as a last resort.
3)
Surrender to the fact that creating = things. To help, I keep a small inventory of paper prints and I
don’t hold inventory of t-shirts or canvas
prints.
4)
Go through available paintings to see if I can make them better. So I’m not holding
onto something I don’t love. If they are edited, they get snatched up by a
collector. Here is a piece I am contemplating… because I
think I can make her better. What
do you think?
5)
Have
a place for supplies and keep them in their place. After a big creative
rush, I clean up and put everything away. Even though I’ll get the paints BACK
out within a couple hours to start something new. The space between projects is
meaningful.
6)
Regularly go through studio drawers and let stuff go: crusty brushes,
recyclable paper and plastic, dried up paints. I donate art paper to the school
and cut up damaged prints for to-do lists.
7)
Surrender
to
the fact that the studio is going to be messy. It is where I create, pack orders
and make magic. Paint flies (you should see the walls and floor), the workbench
surface is usually a painted menagerie, and supplies need to be put somewhere. It’s okay.
I balance my psyche by making sure the rest of the house is decluttered and items are analyzed. This helps me accept the fact that the studio gets crazy.
Do you relate to this? Do you also feel a pull in your soul toward having less? It’s truly a beautiful thing. I’d love to hear your thoughts and any anecdotes/books/techniques you’d like to share!
Thank you for reading. Have a
wonderful week’s end.
Stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy.
Love & Sincerely, Katie
