Category: Blog

Can we sit down for a moment and talk about expiration dates?

Not the ones that we find on packets at the back of the fridge, but the ones we have invisibly tattooed on the back of our hand (or even worse, upon our heart) that tells us that time has passed us by or it’s too late for us or that thing that we want to do that’s showing up as curiosity is meant for other people, not for us. We do love to get in our own way.

Here’s someone you may never have heard of, but she is one of my creative heroines. Her name is Isabella Ducrot. Below is a paragraph from an article that featured her in the New Yorker:

“Only in the past five years has Ducrot, who turned ninety-three in June, become internationally recognized for her art, which she didn’t even begin making until she was in her fifties. When creating her works, she stands and uses a brush sometimes attached to a stick, sweeping loose arcs of ink or paint onto paper or fabric. She often later incorporates scraps of other papers or textiles. Her painted collages usually depict ecstatic figures and stylized landscapes; arrays of ovals or checkered patterns are a recurring feature. Typically made in series, her works are light, energetic, and uninhibitedly beautiful.”

I have read this article countless times, and every time it makes me cry. Not because she is an inspiring older artist. But because she is an inspiring artist full stop. I mean, imagine your work being summed up like this:

“Ducrot’s work and life offer an alternative possibility: that an individual might remain wide-eyed and open to experience—in an enduring state of naïveté, and with a capacity to be joyfully surprised—until the very end.”

If I have a life goal, that would be it.

You might not have aspirations to be internationally recognised for your art. I don’t care (in the most loving way) what it is you want to do. Whatever it is, if you’re telling yourself it’s too late, it’s really not. I can even argue against you with neuroscience, but we’ll save that for another day.

In just over a week, my bird drawing course, Winging It, is opening and if you are keen to start drawing or continue on exploring, I would love you to join me. We’ll work with drawing from reference, from life and creating illustration. And I can even help you prove yourself wrong if you’re telling yourself you cannot draw.

Staying wide eyed and open to experience is exactly what we are going to focus on, through the medium of observing and drawing birds.

You can learn more about Winging It here: www.janepike.com/winging-it

There’s an apple tree outside my office window that looks a little like the Magic Faraway Tree, a book I was obsessed with in my Enid Blyton phase. She’s not especially beautiful (although in their own way, all trees are), but every day she gladly holds her limbs and branches wide for the seed and nectar feeders I place there, and together, we watch out for the birds.

There’s a ranking system that’s easy to observe. The Tūīs are the neighbourhood ruffians; most everyone gives way, and there’s always a bit of infighting amongst them.

I’ve started to be able to pick out the males from the females in their lack of obvious distinction; slightly smaller, more refined, less dominating than their male friends.

The Korimako, or Bellbird, ducks and weaves out of the Tūī’s flightpath. Though higher in rank, they’ll share their place with the Tauhou, or Waxeye.

Mr Blackbird now brings his lady friend, Mrs Blackbird and they are incredibly polite. Big, round eyes, gentle movements.

If a bird hug was a thing, I would want a hug from her.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Kākā flies in, and all bets are off. The Tūīs have tantrums while the Mountain Parrots clamber up and down the tree, preening, chattering, picking at the apples, and sipping nectar.

Yesterday, for the first time, finches appeared. I squealed out loud with delight.

I can’t tell you how much joy they bring. My understanding has deepened beyond what I ever imagined, simply from drawing and observing. The more I look, the more I see.

And the best part? The more I see, the more wonder I experience.

With the world as it is (I don’t need to describe it), it feels more important than ever to know our place intimately and to really recognize our natural allies beyond the human.

In my bird drawing course, I’ll share these friends with you- and I hope you’ll share yours too.

It’s not about “good drawing” (you don’t even need to know where to start). It’s about cultivating attention, and a reverence for the ones you share your backyard with.

And honestly, I can’t think of anything better I’d rather spend my time doing.

Come join me for Winging It: a short, joyful bird drawing course for nature lovers and creative explorers.

Early bird pricing is open now! www.janepike.com/winging-it

I’ve love to have you join me!

xx Jane

You are galloping along, and you have this vision in your mind, and it all seems wonderful, perfect. This is exciting.

You can see it, you know? What a brilliant idea, you think to yourself. You pick up your pencil and make some marks upon the page.

You’re full of gusto. You are going to Freaking. Do. This.

You smile at everyone to benevolently share in your enthusiasm. Sharing is caring. You’re good like that.

The first line seems quite wonky, like your hand is not communicating to your head at all. Weird.

You rub it out and try again, but the second line really isn’t that much different. You feel your first spark of uncomfortability, a shimmer of annoyance.

You rally. You’re an adult after all and it would seem childish at this point to have a tantrum. You keep your feelings to yourself but are going from bad to worse.

The tantrum persists and it’s crawling on your insides.

Nothing is looking like you want it to.

And then it happens: you start to feel al little silly. Like you can’t believe you ever thought this would be fun. Like what an absolute load of walloping bollocks that you ever suspected you could even be that good.

Hmmph.

You’ve reached the quit point.

Of all the things I’ve witnessed getting in the way, frustration is one of the biggest adult dream killers. We have somehow delusionally convinced ourselves- especially when it comes to art- that we should have instant success is translating what we see inside our head down onto the page.

And when that doesn’t happen, we see it as evidence that we should quit, as though any inkling of frustration is communicating to us a lack of creative potential and possibility.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Frustration from a brain and body perspective is an in-road, not an exit ramp.

When we feel frustrated, our brain is madly working on new pathways. You are in the abyss between two mountains, and your body is the bridge; hands hanging on one side, legs hooked across the other.

The neural pathways between your eyes and your hand are in the process of updating; roads are being built, stuck points are being streamlined.

Your pre-frontal cortex is communicating to your visual cortex to your motor cortex to create a neural symphony.

The orchestra of your insides is a cacophony of noise, working to manifest and co-create your vision, if only it’s allowed the time to do so.

This is all frustration is: A temporary holding pattern while things are smoothed and worked out.

A period of white noise before the notes again start to make sense.

A process of advancement and reconfiguration.

And the only thing you have to do is keep on moving.

xx Jane

A sketchbook drawing of Korimako || Bellbird at my bird feeder

Whether something feels inspiring or intimidating all depends on context. Not the outside kind of context- the context of your insides. If you arrive with glitter in your blood and feet firmly connected to the ground beneath you, you’ll most likely meet the work of others you admire with enthusiasm.

You’ll let yourself leapfrog off their creative brilliance, becoming allies in the act of making, picking up the golden thread of an idea they’ve offered and carrying the chain further into the world.

Their work births little thought-babies in you, gifting you the potential to ignite the same spark in someone else, regardless of whether the artist you’re delighting in knows you exist, or even whether they’re alive or long gone.

But if you’re feeling wobbly, those same sources of inspiration can slip into comparison and deflation. Intellectually, we might understand the futility of it, but practically- because we are alive and human-ing- we know the truth of that feeling.

It’s a delicate dance, this dance of creative exposure, especially in the age of the internet.

Because I’m in the midst of a big creative project right now, I’m being careful where I rest my eyeballs. I’m choosing to give my attention, more often than not, to what I call Slow Art.

Slow Art is the art that invites you into intimate conversation, where the only ones present are you and the object of your attention. It’s the gallery pieces, the books, the music- the things you can look at, read, or listen to and form your own opinion, without the likes, the comments, and the heaving, loaded threads.

At this point, while I’m untangling ideas and navigating thoughtscapes that don’t yet have clear beginnings, middles, or ends, the voice I most need to hear is my own intuition. It’s the voice of my creative ancestors dancing on my insides. Perhaps it’s even the silence- the space that allows ideas to form- that is most required right now.

When I consume too much online, my inner docking ports get cluttered. When I want to think further on an idea, all I can hear is the irate opinion of Gary from New York, offering his unwanted thoughts on politics and the role of women in climate change.

Be your own creative protector. Guard your heart and your inner resources. They are needed. And Gary, I’m afraid, is not

Let me talk about two things that happened yesterday which I will classify as ‘Most Important Moments’.

Most Important Moment Number #1 was when I was sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee and doing absolutely nothing. My phone was lost somewhere in a random coat pocket, or possibly in my bedroom. My book wasn’t in its usual place on the table. The boys weren’t home, and my laptop was sleeping in my bag. For a few moments, I let myself sit and do absolutely nothing. Most unusual.

Most Important Moment Number #2 was when I went out for a walk. I didn’t listen to a podcast, and I didn’t send messages to my friends sleeping in time zones the opposite to mine. I didn’t try to think about Important Things. I just walked and let my brain noodle. I chatted to the birds.

It’s curious how we’ve become wired to “maximize every moment” and in the process turned ourselves into information-consuming machines. We use “daydreaming” as an insult and treat being “off with the fairies” as a dysfunctional state (though honestly, who wouldn’t choose that if they could?).

But we need nothingness for the everythingness of our brain to do its job. It’s in the white-space times- the soft focus, gentle intention times- that the wash of our thoughtscapes rolls over all we’ve learned, creating new connections and understandings from what we already know, and what, in the future, we might want to say.

We are equal parts solid and spacious. We need those pockets of wistfulness, the seeming emptiness, the daydreaming states, to allow new ideas and possibilities to find us.

The dreaming and the fairies, it turns out, are essential states of being

We are only ever a footstep away from chaos. We spend so much time trying to smooth our edges, tying up loose ends as though life were a shoelace forever coming undone, stitching our seams so the loose change of our thoughts doesn’t fall through.

And then we type, or draw, or make, and we notice that to reach the places that are truly interesting, we have to open the door and let disorder in. To enter the Mysterium, the Land of Never Before, the Place Where Ideas Are Free To Find Us, we must let the starburst of inspiration rise like a supernova and explode across the page in a mess of ink, and words, and half-formed phrases that swell, and collapse, and rise again like a soft soufflé.

We must surrender, if only momentarily, to a beautiful pandemonium that is part of our inherent design.

And then we see it: all this effort spent polishing our edges was just a holding pattern for a necessary undoing. That it’s the chaos, the disorder, the bits where we allow things to fall apart so they can then come back together that turns out to be important ingredients for the thing that capture our hearts.

So many wonders- the Milky Way, the people you love, the birds that arrive the instant you hang nectar feeders, the leaves that fall and return in spring, the fragile daffodil pushing through hard dirt (is it the most delicate thing you’ve seen, or the strongest?)- are all born of a kind of chaos you could never hope to understand, nor would you ever want to control.

Such is the carbonation of our experience, the fuel for all our stories. To create in a way that has a beginning, a middle and an end is to rest in a necessary jumble, a process of doing and undoing and doing all over again.

If you are involved in a creative project of any sort- one that requires you to show up and sustain (we are doing this in Creating Wild at the moment), then you need to pay attention to what you’re putting in your body. And by that, I mean specifically food (my husband filmed a documentary for the A&E department which has led me to be quite specific here. I’m most definitely not talking about “those types of things”).

As far as food goes, I’d describe myself as functional and reliable. I’m the cooking version of your local hardware store. Has what you need, satisfying enough but nothing fancy, occasionally disappointing, and you get the sense talking to the guy working there that they’d rather be outside.

My friend Tania on the other hand is what I would describe as a Culinary Wafter. She Wafts like a famous chef without a substance abuse problem- a little bit of this, a little bit of that- talking to the dog at the same time, quoting Shakespeare and managing to lead a zoom session, all while conjuring up things such as “green soup” which is bloody delicious (and despite having asked for the recipe many times, I still have no idea what goes in there).

I’ve tried. My green soup was more “bottom of the pond” colour and tasted a bit gritty.

Anyway, the point of me sharing all this with you is this: If you are to draw on creative resources, you need to make sure that your body is fuelled. Frankly, most of us are exhausted enough. The last thing we need is to become part of the problem by eating too much of the wrong thing or not eating enough at all. Creating and making consumes energy and if you’re out of it, you’ll quickly move into depletion.

I tend to fall into the camp of not eating enough and it can leave me like a two-week-old vase of flowers left out in the sun. It’s sounds like a ridiculous thing to point out (Eat! Drink well! You’ll feel better!) but most of us have demands pulling on us that can distract us from taking care of the basics.

Fuel up my friends. We need your stories and your creations so best be finding out about that green soup sooner rather than later.

xx Jane

I read a quote recently that I keep saying to myself on repeat, so I’m going to share it here:

“You probably aren’t a good enough writer to write so slowly. You’ll only learn by finishing. Make it a priority to get to the end.”

That’s not an exact quote, but a stitched-together version from fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson, offered as advice to first-time book writers.

These words are the ultimate kindness. They’re telling you to gallop. They’re telling you to go. They’re telling you to get those words down, to finish that first draft, to roll out of the gates and take off across the open plains.

And what they’re ultimately telling you is this:

Don’t let yourself fall into the ravine of the non-finisher. The world is full of them. If you want to make something exist, put your analytical mind aside (just for the moment) and go. Wind in the hair, a spritz of coolness hitting the cheeks, a smile as wide as the horizon.

Make your story exist, from start to end- no matter how shabby, incoherent, or seemingly nonsensical. That part, at this stage, is none of your business.

I have galloped through 10,000 words of a first draft this week, and yesterday I sat down to see if I could arrange them into some sort of form. I immediately felt myself react. My mind went to that familiar, headmistress-y place where she’d strike things out with a red pen and pay attention to the particulars.

As soon as I felt her come into the room, I attached an ankle bracelet to her and placed her on house arrest. Not yet, I said gleefully, laced up my shoes full of words, and streaked off like the BFG towards the horizon.

Go fast. Go faster than your mind can catch you.

We can get to the other stuff later.

I’ve been dithering around this morning, thinking about what to write to you and convincing myself that I have nothing interesting to say. This is, indeed, a curiosity to me because I am a person who speaks at a thousand miles an hour and is not short on ideas, and yet on occasion, when faced with the blinking cursor and the blank page, I find that words all my words have gone and hidden in various corners of the room.

They frustratingly escape me.

The very small words- the ones I use for fillers (although naturally I try to avoid them) and probably the pronouns too- are giggling behind the legs of my desk, all crouched round together. They remind me of my boys when I announce that it is bedtime.

The others- the ones that make up the main sentences have decided that despite the frost, they are going to pack themselves a picnic and go off to the beach. I just watched them trail out the door and open the front gate, arguing about which one of them will carry the food.

As you can see, this morning is a lot.

You might assume that seeing as though I live in an out of the way place, that I cannot rely on my people to help me find a way through, but I would gleefully like to tell you that you’re mistaken. My people are everywhere.

Many of my people don’t even know that they’re my people. And what’s more, some of them are dead.

A little while back, I picked up a book about birds and exclaimed shortly after the first paragraph, into the thin air, ‘you are my people!’.

Last week, I stumbled upon a Portuguese illustrator whose enthusiasm and skill are second to none and I claimed him as my people too. In fact, I shot him to the top. He’s an excellent people to have.

In mornings such as these, I draw on my people quite a lot. I open the book or click play on the video and I let their energy magic into existence something in me that I can only describe as ‘possibility’.

I let them convince me that it’s possible to write or draw or make. Something. Anything.

Stop pissing around, they tell me affectionately. Just make something exist.

Our creative selves do not exist in isolation- nor are they meant to. We get to piggyback off the brilliant, artistic, wordy unicorns we’ve chosen for ourselves, who gift us with remembering things are possible simply by showing up themselves.

So, in case you need this too, in the most loving tone I can muster, please stop pissing around and make something.

There’s someone out there who needs to piggy back off you.

xx Jane

I like to think of creativity as the ability to find new and unique solutions to problems, or innovative ways to express a story that’s already been told.

When I think of creativity this way, I get excited. It becomes less about skill or a technique and more about, what is my unique viewpoint on this? How might I approach this in a different way?

Giving yourself permission to approach something creativity is permission to stray. If the fundamental premise is to be different, to show a different way, then the ideas that you may initially have doubted become seeds of possibility to be expanded on and developed.

Having supported myself in my own business since forever- something I consider to be a very creative act- I’m an unhinged enough to believe the creative projects that I am yet to develop the skills and expertise around are possible.

I know that with play, practice and learning, mastery comes. It’s just a matter of consistently showing up for yourself and giving yourself permission before anyone else does.

Throwing myself into visual art as an adult has started to unpick some of the rigid habits I have developed in my writing. If there are twenty different ways to draw this tree, with countless different materials, what are the twenty different ways to tell this story?

I realized, because of drawing and painting, how fixed my writing processes have become. And when I let myself go off the wall in the early stages, I end up with something far more interesting- and yes, creative- than I would have if I’d stuck to the previous rules I imposed for myself.

This weekend, I put on some tunes, surrounded myself with paints and pencils and markers and wax crayons and asked myself, what happens if I use this? And then what happens if I overlay that?

To give myself the opportunity to make mistakes and open doors I never could have considered if I’d just sat and thought about it.

And I tell you, I felt so happy.