Hey y’all,
I’ve recently been fortunate enough to undergo a pretty seismic shift in my attitudes towards my creativity and creative practices. It’s been some of the most productive time that I can remember in my career and has resulted in several new compositions (or songs, minus the words) in addition to completing a new album of mine. At the same time, I’ve developed a website, written press releases, booked gigs, organised a new band, recorded on other projects… all sorts of things.
But, more importantly, the transformation has significantly improved my outlook on myself as an artist and as a person. I’ve always been pretty positive about my role in the world – that of the fearless artist – pencil in hand, right-foot gently resting against the sustain pedal.
Sometime in 2014-2015, though, I started to lose sight of it. I really started to feel that everything I created was pretty nothing – it was either the same as I had done before, or the same as a million other things already out there. “What is the point?!” almost became a daily-question.
With thoughts of throwing it all away and becoming an accountant, my dearest wife stepped in and offered me guidance, love and support to help steady myself and get back on track.
So… how did I overcome such obstacles and begin to feel creative and worthy again?
The real turning point for me has been my enrolment in a creativity mentorship program. I have always been a little sceptical about the benefits of these types of things; however, it has undoubtedly been the single greatest thing I have ever done to help my creativity.
Mijo Biscan is a creativity mentor who has developed a fantastic course called Creativity Mindset Mastery (creativitymindsetmastery.com). He runs seminars, releases videos and wears yellow t-shirts. Best of all, he takes a real interest in where you are as an artist and helps to work through issues that are preventing you from achieving your full potential.
I would encourage anyone to undertake one of Mijo’s courses.
Another really cool resource I’ve found (well, was gifted for my birthday) is a book called “Steal Like An Artist” by Austin Kleon (austinkleon.com/steal/). There’s a lot of really interesting material that challenges the way artists normally go about their work. I haven’t even begun to incorporate it into my way of working but I’m looking forward to integrating it over the next weeks and months.
It’s important for artists to remember that we are all alike in so many ways.
We all experience the giddying highs of truly creative, magical moments. We all struggle through the soul-crushing lows when things aren’t working. In the good times, we have no problems in sharing our experiences. In the bad times, we tend to suffer in silence and think that we’re the only artists to have ever struggled, given-up, questioned, reached for the Nestle Choc-Melts in desperation.
This is not the case.
This blog is an opportunity for me to share my work with you. It’s not always going to be perfect. Sometimes, things will be (really) messy and unfinished. I hope that it will continue to spur me on creatively and help me consider my practices by writing down my thoughts, my triumphs and my time-wasting. I hope that it might serve as a reminder for you that we are not alone in the experiences that I outlined above. Hopefully, if you’re struggling with something, I might be able to help by having shared your experience. Likewise, I hope that if I’m struggling with something on here, you’ll be able to share with me.
If you’d like to stay informed of when these are released, you can join my mailing list at brentonfoster.com/mailing-list/.
In the meantime, I wish you all well and thank you for taking the time to read this post.
Brenton
