Creative Habits: Rituals

Kalamezhutu being performed. Photo by SK Mohan

According to our friends at Wikipedia you can define a ritual as:  a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers. There are many other definitions and applications of the word; they range from religious acts to anthropological studies.

I'll keep it simple though. Since I spoke about creating routines yesterday I think it's important to consider part of creative life as a ritual. For example, drawing every day for 1 hour. That's a nice ritual to adopt, heck, one that I'd like to adopt. It would improve my skills, keep me grounded and disciplined to a routine, and offer some measure of spiritual and mental fortitude.

I find myself needing to connect with my spiritual self in this process of becoming a creative being. Since I'm going to be doing a lot of reading and research, I'm going with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Inner Workbook). This I hope will help me develop both spiritually and creatively. It's something that resounds deeply because I am not religious. Art is my religion I suppose.

Gisele Jacquenod's Awesomesauce mug
(I love it and want one pleaseee!)

Currently my main ritual is tea. No tea. No work. Just as birdie says defiantly; but a tea ritual is just part of my story. I have decided to start a new life routine/challenge which is slightly separate from this creative habits plan, but intrinsically linked. It involves yoga and meditation, the latter of which I have been ignoring for some time now. I know it's ultimately important to my creative well-being.

In this Art:21 episode, Janine Antoni (Bahamanian by the way) and Gabriel Orozco speak about rituals in their work. On another note I think I should start every day watching Art:21 and checking out the education section. It is a totally plausible ritual.

Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.

I'm not sure what form my artistic rituals will take, but I have a fair idea that I'll be using a mixture of media, be it video, drawing or an exercise from one of my drawing books, and well, tea. You can't take that away from me.