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If we want a big, bold, brave, creative life . . . is seeking comfort really our best bet?
As someone who’s written about and strived to live the slow live for nearly two decades, you’d think I’d be all in for anything related to ease or comfort. And I guess it makes sense.
In our cultural mix of rage, division and orthodoxy-over-divergent-thought . . . finding safe spaces to gather is a natural, necessary instinct. So when I saw a post from one of my fav writers / educators on here about this particular theme of creative safety, it got me thinking. (Whom, by the way, I won’t name, because I adore them and I’m not writing this from a space of judgement - just curiosity.)
The post talked about how if the room doesn’t make you feel safe, seen and held, it means you’re in the wrong room.
And my first thought was - does it?
I mean - I get it. There are few spaces where we can go as humans, never mind creatives, in the world where we can grow, free from the vitriol that has become weaved into the fabric of the inter-webs and thus our lives.
‘Safe’ spaces where we can try, fail, experiment, try again - cocoons of inspiration and transformation - these are essential to our creative process. But they’re only part of the process.
Eventually, we also need to step out on stage, into the world beyond these safe spaces.
Especially as female creatives in the world, if we want to smash ceilings, claim a seat at the table, break through walls - we must be willing to walk into and take up space in rooms where we will feel decidedly uncomfortable, not welcome, unseen.
My experience in art school as a young woman making work with feminist undertones . . . sucked.
My BFA in Visual Art was taught via the critique model. You make your work on your own, then once a week hang it on the gallery wall to be ripped apart by your prof and peers, while you stand by - presenting, listening and defending (and/or crying).
Lemme tell ya, most days, that room did not make me feel held.
The thing is, that room was also essential for my growth as an artist. One of the youngest in my program at only 17, that battle to be seen, to be heard, to take up space, continues to inform my work as a creative, even now at 43 writing these words on this screen.
That demanding, uncomfortable room taught me valuable skills of grit, determination and persistence - all skills that cannot be gained without a force to push against.
So - don’t avoid those uncomfortable rooms.
If we do, if we only seek out spaces that ‘align’ with our own particular view of the world, that validates our feelings and doesn’t put up a fight . . . well . . . In the end, I think that maybe, both our work and our spirits will suffer.
Yes, I started and quit third year painting not once, but three times. I battled with my profs and my classmates and myself for four years straight. I faced multiple crises of self-belief and didn’t want to paint much for years after I graduated. It wasn’t easy. It came at a cost.
And yet . . . when I look back, I don’t think I would have become a writer without those pressure-cooker years.
It was in the act of fighting my way out that I began to introduce text into my work, which caused that spark of inspiration and a leap forward in my work as both a visual artist and a writer. I would never have picked up Printmaking (which became my heart’s joy) if I hadn’t hated my painting prof with such a passion.
Maybe these uncomfortable rooms, these obstacles, aren’t actually obstacles after all. Maybe, as many, much wiser folks have said many times before me - the obstacle is the way.
Stacey Langford is a writer, renegade farmer and slow business mentor living and working in Canada’s Fraser Valley. In 2010 Stacey ditched her cubicle in the city to turn her attention homeward, farm and help others craft a simple life, from scratch.
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