Brand new... your art when it's first born.

How quickly do we desire to be good at something? 

How soon after it's conception do we expect our work to be exceptional?

How long does it marinate inside of our hearts, heads and spaces?

Do we give it enough time? 

Do we let ourselves get in the way?

What do we read or learn about what we are doing before we get down on ourselves for failing or for being no good?

Being creative daily, keeping it fresh, keeping it real... this is a constant fragile state. It is a fragile state that we must live in and protect, put a hedge of protection around our time and our space, circle the wagons. 

It is also bold. 

This simultaneous balance of the fragile, the private, the delicate, the insecure, the new, and the infancy of an idea mixed in with the boldness to be doing it anyhow. Stubborn confidence in valuing that sacred alone time with you and your art, even if you are at times wrought with fear about the whole relationship with yourself and your art. 

Fears could be brought on by the things that excite us most; a time of training in our lives, learning a new skill or doing some more research, taking a class...These things can bring on insecurities during these fragile times. 

Or hardest yet... telling others that you are totally into this art thing in your life. Then they will know about it and ask you how things are going. It will be like your parents asking you about whoever you are dating at the time and how soon can they meet them. It's so fresh and new and your just figuring things out! How can the world want to know yet?

Check out this story from NPR, "The Beauty and the Difficulty of Poet Nikky Finney" by Noah Adams. Nikky Finney is the most recent winner of the Book of the Year Award for her book, "Head Off & Split". If you listen the audio portion of the article, you will get some excellent gems of wisdom. 

She talks about her process as an artist a bit, her space, how she makes it her own by using a vintage chalk board the frame of which she painted turquoise. She talks about the hand made chalk she uses on it to work on her words. It is a room above a garage in her back yard. She talks about her influences, her life. She shares about her need to be planted in her space to make her work. My favorite was her quote at the end, when asked what she wrote today she said, "I wrote a couplet. I really like it! It's going to be something when it grows up." 

That is beautiful to me. The woman who just won The Book of the Year Award says of her days work, 'It's going to be something when it grows up'

Give your work the space to be what it will be when it grows up. Give it the nurture that it needs today. Today it is a newborn.

Head Off & Split: Poems

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