I don't know why I am so resistant to change sometimes. I have a way of doing things, and I like my little systems for getting things done. I used to get critiques all of the time when I was in school. People would push me to go outside of my box, and try new styles and techniques of work that would open me up to new discoveries in my artistic practice. It is always good to be willing to change. Making changes in how we work, is the only way we can make improvements. The only way to make things better is to make changes.
It is like that saying goes, "Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If I use the same techniques and procedures to do all of my work forever; I will no longer be improving my work, and eventually will no longer be relevant.
Despite all of this I am still often resistant to change. I am a creature of habit and feel comfortable in my life of ritual. I have had pointers and suggestions about my work from several different sources, but I have been unwilling to change. I think it comes down to two things.
The first reason that I may be resistant to change is that I am lazy. I like the way that I do things. It is easy to repeat the same procedures on every art piece that I am working on, then that way I don't have to try as hard to produce something. Also the suggestions that I have received are more labor intensive than what I have been doing previously. Why should I do more work for an end result when I could just do it the easy way? This is no way to think because a better process cannot be found if I am unwilling to try a new things.
The second reason for my resistance is that my creative mind seems to be dead lately. I mean I have a list of projects that I want to work on, but they are all things that I have been doing. I will finish them, because they are what I want to do, but when it comes to working on something new none of my ideas have been able to come together into something that I can actually make. I get these hints of an idea but nothing that is strong enough yet to form the basis of a new piece.
I don't know what to do about this mental block I have against this new process. I have been waging a battle against the artist's block that has been holding me back for weeks. The only reason that I have been able to keep working is, because when I was still able to grasp things from my imagination I wrote them down and have stored up ideas to keep working on. The thing is that if I continue to battle with my creativity like I am right now I am going to run out of things to work on.
If I get the the point where I don't have anything left on my list of projects then I will become inactive. When I don't have any active projects I stop working, and go into my lazy depressed phase and don't work on anything for months.
What I need is to figure out a way to implement the suggestions people have made into my work. I need to take these things and run, use them to inspire my next pieces of art. This will kill two birds with one stone. I will be able to avoid falling into the lazy inspiration-less pit of depression, and I will be able to implement the changes to the work that will improve it. I just have to work harder at finding my next inspiration so that I can get onto making these changes.
Though I don't have any strategies to defeating a creative slump. If I keep working at it I usually come up with something. If only beating your head against the wall actually worked to help you come up with ideas. Oh, well inspiration will come and if it doesn't I will just have to do creative exercises to make them come. One way or another I will keep moving forward.
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