Safe space and creativity: a little taste of a big idea

Funny how just when I was thinking Hey, this Craft or Bust thing has really been working out for me, surprisingly well! I hit a wall. This week has been probably my least productive of the year. And it has a lot to do with something else I can't get out of my head this week — the recurring theme of safe space being connected to creativity. Because I'm not feeling so mentally hot right now, I won't try to go into great detail. I'll just say this: For me, if for no one else, and I think probably it isn't just me, being truly creative requires safe space. Not a space that's insipid and sheltered, but a space where I feel comfortable expressing what's truly me. Sometimes this space has to be created through rebellious acts — defying convention and taking that safe space, come hell or high water, no matter what anyone thinks of you — and sometimes safe space is a gentle thing, a retreat, like an obscure clearing in the woods with a little brook and softly falling leaves.

The bottom line, though, is that I can't create well without a safe space. I can create haphazardly, in a way that doesn't satisfy me, in a way that I look back on and see the holes in where I didn't fill in everything that I was thinking or feeling at the time, that make the piece feel incomplete or false. But to create anything that resonates with me, I need safe space.

And this week my safe space has been pretty nonexistent. No gory details, I promise. Just that little note, as an explanation of why I have been largely silent and unamusing on virtually all counts.

On the other hand, before my creative lines went dead, I was brewing a few new ideas that should help my rock my shadow artist to sleep, if I ever get out of this shattered-safe-space-induced funk. More on all those things later. For now, send positive vibes. Send geeky ideas. Send your belief in me and my creativity and intrinsic creative weirdness. My safe space is now under reconstruction. (And I will get my weekly craftiness in. I know I can work on just one thing before Sunday. And that's the beauty of Craft or Bust.)