The Studio Source.com

It was one of those too-early hot, humid days that turns the world into an aquarium. A day that dampens everything. Clothes sticking, air thick and stale.

“I’m supposed to be enjoying myself,” she thinks, slowing to a walk, then stopping without fully realizing it. Running was always her refuge, her tonic, particularly when she was blocked.

But not today. Not yesterday, or the day before.

This block was a big one.

Nothing felt right. Ideas came, then vanished; frail, frightened things that skittered away at the slightest inclination to catch them. Work had become work, her studio a prison worse than the last day job. She was avoiding deadlines, letting people down. She didn’t want to get out of bed anymore.

“Is this depression? What’s happening to me?”

Then the voice comes. Not the kind that warns of invasions from outer space and sends you running for the tinfoil, but the other voice. The quiet one. The voice you ignore at your peril.

“There is nothing here to sustain you.”

She takes a breath, closes her eyes, tries to push it away. Can’t.

“Shit.”

She doesn’t realize she’s said it out loud.

A kid with a skateboard gives her a sidelong look as he shuffles by, absently scratching his side with his free hand.

Unnoticed.

She stands in the middle of the path in the middle of the park in the middle of the day, perfectly still.

– — – — – — – — – — – — – –

Sometimes I think we avoid marketing not because we’re afraid of rejection, but because we harbour the irrational belief it will eventually consume us. That we’ll become so preoccupied with marketing we’ll stop making good work. That we’ll be forced to spend so much time selling we’ll start to dread the very thought of walking into the studio.

If you believe that, you’re doing it the wrong way. And you’re not alone.

I got preoccupied, and spent the last three months reconsidering everything.

Confession
Long story short, I failed to practice what I preach: that marketing should flow naturally from your creative practice—that it should also be the work of imagination.

It looks stupidly simple in print. But life has a way of getting complicated, and we humans aren’t particularly good with perspective. I can only now confess to my hypocrisy through the benefit of hindsight.

At the time, I told myself it was burnout, and that was true up to a point. But I was wrong about the source, which wasn’t just overwork. I’d reached the point where I didn’t like what I was doing and wasn’t sure why I was doing it. It wasn’t so much a disconnect as an unraveling, and it crept up on me slowly. It ended in an almost palpable sense of unease, as if I were trying to wear someone else’s skin.

The scary part
The inevitable questions arose. Was I doing the wrong thing? Was I doing the right thing the wrong way? Was I following my gut or my ego? How could I get myself out of the rut? Was the endeavour even viable?

There is nothing here to sustain you.

Those awful words echoed in my head. I didn’t know where to get the answers I needed. But I knew I had to start digging.

Like our fictional friend in the park, I let people down. I started saying no to things. I got rid of stuff—donating, gifting, recycling, tossing out, clearing my space and desperately trying to clear my head. I told myself there had to be a yes somewhere in all those no’s.

But I also realized there was no guarantee I’d find it.

Deadline
Labour Day arrived with a heat wave and a hurricane. Vacation time was supposed to be over. I considered quietly deleting my Twitter account and making this site vanish into the virtual mist. That option is still on the table, and I think it always will be. The prospect of instant, irresponsible freedom is appealing, and might just see me through a rough patch someday.

But bailing out wouldn’t solve anything. Neither would forcing it. So I waited. Gritted my teeth and let things play out.

Renewal
In the end, yes bubbled up as quietly as the slow descent into the mire. Just a few days ago, a bunch of little things gathered themselves together and reminded me where my creativity lives and what really gets me jazzed.

Yes climbed out of my cramped computer and went out dancing in the big, wide, real world.

What we create reflects who we are as a culture. What we surround ourselves with—art, design, music, writing, reflects who we are as individuals—not just our sense of aesthetics, but our dreams, desires, and even our most secret fears.

As makers, we begin with an idea, give it form, and present it to the world. Why we do it is as unique as we are. Some of us love design for its own sake. Some of us yearn to make meaning. Some have a passionate connection with our medium.

For some of us, it’s a combination of all those things. We need to carry those reasons with us wherever we go and never lose sight of them.

Perspective
Marketing isn’t scary because it’s big. It’s scary because it can get very small, very fast.

I started The Studio Source by urging you to forget the uptight business speak, because marketing is cool. I got so caught up in trying to create a clear message I took all the—what’s the word I’m looking for?—right. Creativity. I took all the creativity out of it,  and everything stopped being cool.

Never doing that again.

Next summer I’m going to the beach.