You’re in the studio, and you listen to the news, you can’t imagine things get worse, but then they do.
As artists and creatives how do we make sense of the world around us? The hostile context in which it feels like we have little power to change anything or make an impact?
I had notes I was going to type up into a post a couple of weeks ago. But the US elections blindsided me, and I felt disconnected from what I had written. I couldn’t share thoughts on cultivating joy in good faith at that moment, so I didn’t. I had to feel the feelings, in the hope they’d pass. A tall order, because some of my gloomy thoughts weren’t about the election, but the wider context of the election: the genocide in Gaza and the climate. And the recognition that clear-sighted, truthful analysis feels so rare.
It’s difficult not to feel disempowered and that to make art is a futile gesture right now.
Well, don’t make art. Don’t make art on the days when the feelings of despair need their space. Or rather, take that pressure off, strike creativity off the to-do list for now.
I was in London when Trump was declared the next US President. I decided it was important to go and see an exhibition of new portraits by Kehinde Wiley. Wiley was commissioned to paint Barrack Obama, which I saw, alongside Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama, in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, when I was visiting for a conference a few years ago. It’s moving to see these portraits, as visually and symbolically they meaningfully intervene in the presidential portrait tradition. Rather than upholding convention, both paintings convey dignity and contemporary complex personhood situating both Obamas in their own unique context. More than that, for the first time, the commissions went to Black contemporary artists, painting the first Black former President and First Lady.
Sometimes art is political by existing.
Last week, I had a rare free Friday night and so I went along to 5 Rhythms dance class near me. A 5 Rhythms class follows a wave, moving through: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. There are no instructions on how to dance, by the teacher might provide prompts as well as a playlist to get you into these different rhythms.
During ‘chaos’, the most energetic of the five rhythms, a long remix of Candi Staton’s ‘You Got The Love’ was played. I connected with the song viscerally as I heard the lines “Now it feels like life is just too much”. Soon after, Sarah, the teacher said to us all “you’ve all got into your heads, whatever you’re feeling, put it into the dance”. This was such a smart and generous intervention. I put it into the dance and a few tears came.
There is a temptation to think we can make sense of this moment in our heads. We can’t. Sense comes by feeling and releasing. And releasing is a bodily process.
Put it into the dance, and let it go. Get it out of your head.
Here’s what I learned, a new cheat sheet for finding joy in dark times:
Go see art. Art does something beyond language, it takes you somewhere where you can feel and think and this is it’s restorative potential.
Go for a walk. Walk it out, move your body.
Dance it out, put on music that you want to hear and move and let go. If all else fails, I recommend ‘You Got The Love’.
Things feel different once you’ve given time and space to feelings of despair, allowing them rather than repressing them. Letting go of them is a bodily process. Finding release and then finding the next step doesn’t come from the mind, but from the body. So there’s no reframe for dark times I can give you in words. It has to be an embodied felt experience—and that’s how joy can return. On the other side of moving–a breath in and a breath out.
We’re nearing the end of another year of turbulence and change. If you’d like support in reviewing this year, making sense of what you’ve made and achieved, working with a mentor can be so valuable in developing clarity and self-insight. And also, beginning a new year setting professional intentions and dreaming how you’d like to evolve can help you get going on your path with clarity.
I’d like to make you a seasonal offer: 2x hr sessions with me which would normally cost £160, I’m offering for £140, that’s a £20 discount for an hour with me before the end of year, and another at the start of 2025. If that feels inviting to you, message me.
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