Morning Pages

I approached drawing and writing shyly, unsure. The way you might approach a friend you haven't had time for, afraid that maybe they'd given up on you for good this time. It was doing morning pages that saved me, and reading "The Voice of the Muse" that motivated me.

I've observed in the past that there can be a dangerous gap between ideas and output, when the hand is left idle for too long. The ideas swell, become full of themselves, inflating and drifting away like a hot air balloon that the hands can't possibly pull down to earth. The hands attempt to marry the idea, shakily. Failing the ideal, and in shock of the limitations of one's own hand, the artist falls into despair.

It is only movement that closes the gap. Ugly, awkward, but sometimes lovely movement. It is through this movement that the hand can even approach the idea, and out of respect the idea begins to bow to meet the ability of the hand. Draw anything, write anything, any word, allow the hand to move.

These were some of the places where I faced the morning pages. On the deck of the Inn on the Harbor, with a cup of Earl Grey tea. A pomegranate juice on the shell filled tables at Lily's cafe, and my favorite spot by the sea on the drive toward Haystack. The drawing was one of the first I tried, in my effort to close the gap.