Meet Cheryl

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cheryl. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cheryl, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever had any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?

Creatives periodically run into ebbs, as we are not wired to run full tilt boogie, 24/7/365. As John Ruskin once said, “There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it.” In my opinion, ebbs are essential. In my experience, they often foreshadow a creative breakthrough or pivot.

That being said: there are times when ebbs become prolonged blocks, Extended lulls may pull us down a path of self-doubt and negative talk, which may tempt abandonment of the creative pursuit in question.

To overcome what I deem “painting reluctance,” here are a few tricks that help me maintain creative inertia.

1. Reset – Sometimes, the answer is to take time out to recalibrate. Nap. Move: take a gentle walk or swim. Treat yourself to a creative date to a new-to-you museum, gallery, or art supply store. Adjust your frequency by changing your playlist. Clean and organize your workspace.

2. Play – All art work and no art play makes for a dull creative. Doodle. Make color swatches. Work fast: set a 20-minute timer to see what painting or drawing or poem comes forth. Work small: try a 20-stroke painting. Take a class in a new medium.

3. Honor your energy level – If you’ve downshifted into a lower gear, choose tasks that aren’t a heavy mental lift. For me, that means I gesso my substrates, frame paintings, update my inventory and re-order supplies. These side quests ensure that I’m in the “ready for anything” position when the inevitable surge arrives.

4. Have options – At any given time, I have 8-15 canvases in assorted stages of progress. If I get stuck on one, I easily pivot to working on another. I may stop work on a particular painting, but I don’t stop painting entirely. There’s always something I can get closer to the finish line.

5. Establish deadlines – A firm deadline is another tactic that may help you commit to making progress.
I am goal-driven, so I book exhibitions and events to keep me on track for my aims. My calendar is full of collection completion dates. I then work backwards to block time into “Start Weeks” and “Finish Weeks.” Of course I allow for wiggle room for some naps and diversions.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I started painting later in life, but the important thing to me is: I started.

My creative path commenced at age four when I taught myself how to read music. I expressed myself personally as a classically trained pianist, an avid writer, and a photographer for decades. Professionally, I worked primarily in sales and marketing roles in a slew of industries, including hospitality, gourmet food, international travel, and commercial construction. From 2007-2017, I had a photography-based stationery line that I sold via wholesale and retail channels. Living a layered life, full of creative pursuits, has always been important to me.

Having grown up with several amateur artists in my family, I was curious about painting. In 2020, I finally did something about it and signed up for acrylic painting classes. I got eight lessons in before the lockdown, and much to my surprise, there was a painter who was eager to come forth.

The timing of my creative pursuit was opportune. In 2020, painting was an activity that I could control in a world that was uncontrollable in just about every way imaginable. I was able to pass the time pleasurably by making something out of nothing. An added bonus? While painting required my full attention, it didn’t require any screen time. I leaned hard into playing in the intersection of “What If? and “Why Not?” and used that time to develop my skills and style.

My two favorite genres at the moment are animals and landscapes. Right now, I feel as if we’re hungry for connection and homesick for nostalgia. Many of my painting compositions touch on creatures and places that resonate with the viewer for myriad reasons. While my use of vibrant color may be what draws in someone, they may linger because they are having a fond memory or enjoying a moment of familiarity.

I currently split the year between New Hampshire and Virginia, two states in which I exhibit in group and solo shows. My animal art is represented by the Jackson Art Studio and Gallery in Jackson, New Hampshire.

As I mentioned before, we’re hungry for connection. Few things facilitate that more than handwritten notes. I’m dipping my toe back into the stationery pool by releasing new cards based on my paintings this September.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three qualities have helped my creative and professional journey.

1. Persistence: My black-belt in perseverance was forged at the piano bench when I was little. I figured out how to read music at a very young age by finding middle C on the piano – and I never looked back. Once I got older and more musically proficient, I spent hours after school practicing in preparation for upcoming recitals and exams. Committing to painting intensively in my 50s was not a quantum leap. It has never been unusual for me to be locked in on one activity for an extended period of time.

There were times when my desire or visions outpaced my ability, but that made me double down an commit to mastering my materials and skills even more.

2. Boredom: One of the best things my parents did for me was they allowed me to get bored.

John Eastwood, author of “Out of My Skull – The Psychology of Boredom” writes, “When you feel bored, because it’s an aversive and uncomfortable state, you’re motivated to look for something else. In that gap, there’s a real chance to discover something new. What matters to me and what am I passionate about? I think that looking can be a source of creativity.”

Arguably, the luxury of boredom is becoming a lost art. It’s not the Simple 70s any longer. We’re fighting a battle for our attention span on a host of devices on our desk, in our cars, in our hands, on our TVs.

Overcoming boredom by means of self-entertainment contributes to independence, problem-solving, imagination, better understanding of oneself. Treat yourself to some unstructured, unscheduled, unplugged time and see where that takes you.

3. Grace: The love of playing piano dissolved when it was eroded by my perfectionist tendencies. If I couldn’t play something perfectly, it wasn’t worth doing, in my mind. I found myself getting very frustrated as practice time brought me more aggravation than joy.

I didn’t want that to happen again when I started painting, so I made a promise to myself that making bad art along the way was not only going to happen, but it was going to be welcomed. I was giving myself the gift of grace.

I permitted myself to fail “up”. A read that influenced my way of thinking towards letting go and getting the work done was “Art and Fear,” written in 1993 by working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland.

In “Art and Fear,” there’s a tale about a pottery class in which grades are assigned by quality or quantity. Half of the class was graded based on the quantity of ceramics that they produced. The rest of the class was graded according to the quality of their pottery: they were tasked with chasing “perfect.”

As it turned out, the highest grades were earned by the students in the “quantity” group. Why? They made a lot of mistakes as they churned out work after work, and in doing so, they learned from the errors of their ways.

The other group? Paralyzed by the relentless pursuit of perfection: they were immobilized by their fear of failure.

The magic is in the mess. Afford yourself some grace while you figure it out.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

The most impactful thing my parents did for me was they had their own creative interests and they were willing to invest in mine. We were not a big television family. My parents were more interested in having me learn piano, try new activities at summer camp, help them experiment with new recipes in the kitchen, see the world in a new way through a camera lens.

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