Four Things.

On creative fuel.

Before we dive in, I want to say THANK YOU to all of the new faces here at Creativity in the Time of Capitalism (CITTOC). It absolutely warms my heart to see this community growing and I am so thankful to have you all. I would love to hear from you in the comments and encourage you to reach out with questions, thoughts—whatever is on your mind. Building community is one of the pillars of this project.

I was really touched by the response to last week’s essay, On Seeds, and have decided to make it available to our growing community of free subscribers for a limited time. You can find that essay here when you are ready.

To give our new subscribers the lay of the land, CITTOC features a revolving cast of essays, interviews and round-ups of resources to fuel a creative life. This week, we are due for our monthly discussion of said resources. Below I will share four that are proving to be very meaningful to me, so let’s jump in.

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1. Resource One: The Artist’s Way

2. Resource Two: Sanzo Wada’s Dictionary of Color Combinations

3. Resource Three: Jennifer Romolini’s Ambition Monster 

4. Resource Four: Technology for Posterity

Resource One: The Artist’s Way

I have finally begun Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I was inspired by the comments section on this very newsletter, where Kathie Sever, the wildly creative owner of Ft. Lonesome who elevates chain stitching to high art (and is, incidentally, scheduled as a future interviewee here on CITTOC) asked if I was a devotee of Morning Pages. Morning Pages are an integral, daily exercise to the Artist’s Way program, where you begin each day with three solid pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness journaling. Cameron often describes it as a space for whatever comes up. It is not meant to be profound or poetic (though it certainly can be), it is simply meant to wipe the grime away from the window of your mind so you can begin the day more buoyant, engaged, aware. When Kathie’s question popped up, after years of hearing references to The Artist’s Way in general and Morning Pages in particular, the seed was planted for me, and I ordered the book, journal, and workbook as a birthday gift to myself. 

Recently, this excerpt in the week two lesson (there are twelve weeks total) arrived as a beautiful gut punch:

“Writing about attention, I see that I have written a good deal about pain. This is no coincidence. It may be different for others, but pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. Each moment, taken alone, was always bearable. In the exact now, we are all, always, all right. Yesterday the marriage may have ended. Tomorrow the cat may die. The phone call from the lover, for all my waiting, may not ever come, but just at the moment, just now, that’s all right. I am breathing in and out. Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.”