To hold studio hours or not, that is the question. A simple one at face value, but one that requires a very specific and intentional approach to answering.

Over the years, I have swung between two disparate ends of the spectrum on an internal pendulum operated by a very opinionated part of myself. She is ultimately trying to protect me, but her strategies have led to burnout so consistently that even she can see they aren't working anymore.

This pendulum tends to swing between the following:

Rigidly creating and trying to stick to a plan, routine, habits, structure, strategy, hoping beyond hope that it will finally be the thing that makes everything else in life work. The secret to everything. The magic cure for my fallible humanity. This end of the spectrum holds a long-standing belief that we are only as worthy as we are productive, only as important as we are prolific, only as serious as we are consistent, only as good as we can prove ourselves to be. This end of the spectrum got me through high school, college, internships, 9-to-5 jobs, family upheaval, and more. For all intents and purposes, it has done a brilliant job at what it does best: push.
Then there's the other end of the spectrum, where the routine, habit, structure, or strategy inevitably gets broken. In the shame of not following through on what was committed to, there is a giving up of all hope, an abandoning of everything, myself included, and a sinking into the painful feeling that I can't trust myself to follow through with anything. This leads to the only conclusion this end of the spectrum can come up with: that I am a failure of the worst kind.

One of the main problems with this pendulum-swinging way of being is that it leaves little room for living in the in-between, which I'd argue is where our most expansive creative potential lies. We ebb and flow. We shift and change. We cycle through seasons. We grow through and beyond things. What works at one time in our lives may suddenly become a hindrance with the changing of a day, an hour, or a circumstance.

The parts that live at and take over from each end of the spectrum tend to believe there is no way but the one they have been practicing all their lives. And because these two ends of the spectrum hold such clashing views of the world, they leave little room for anything outside of their own certainty. On the one hand, believing everything is up to me and I must figure it all out on my own. On the other hand, believing I am helpless, there's really nothing I can do, and I'm all alone anyway. This kind of polarization leaves little room for experimentation.

So, with all of this hard-earned awareness, built through repeated tenderness, gentle internal inquiry, and many hours of therapy, somatic work, and so on, here I am today with an opportunity to experiment with a new way. To venture into the gray space between the two ends of the spectrum. To bring both parts to the conversation and allow them the opportunity to become integrated into the present moment truth: we get to make things up as we go, we get to change our minds, we get to experiment and see what happens.

Ultimately, I'm curious: what would it be like to hold consistent studio hours at specific times of the day on certain days of the week without any expectation for what comes out of that time? Is there a structure, a set of guidelines, boundaries, or agreed-upon parameters that could be in service of consistent creative freedom, play, and experimentation? Am I ready to offer myself this kind of devotional practice without letting the fear of failure keep me from showing up?

There’s really only one way to find out!

Summer Portal Studio Hours – An Experiment

Monday 10am - 11am

Wednesday 8am - 10am

Thursday 10am - 11am

Studio Hours Guidelines:
Always in service to providing myself with consistent creative freedom, play, and experimentation.

This is a four-week experiment, running from June 15th to July 10th.
No emailing (or checking email) during studio hours.
No phone (must be placed in the box and set to Do Not Disturb.)
No busy work (laundry, dishes, organizing, tidying, errands, cooking, etc.)
This is not the time for sharing the work. That can happen later.
Reading a book counts.
Writing counts.
Documentation counts.
Following a thread of curiosity counts.
Lying on the floor counts.
There is nothing to complete or produce.
This is a practice of returning and paying attention.
The outcome is of no importance.

Lastly, there is no way to fail this experiment. Whatever happens leads to new information.

At the end of the experiment, and throughout, I will return to reflect on how things are going, what challenges are arising, what shifts are occurring, and what is or isn’t changing.