In this season of a summer unplanned, I’ve spent less physical time in the studio. Less time painting, collaging, creating. Less time planning, dreaming, focusing, building. As a sometimes highly productive person, I have been feeling a lot of guilt and discouraged as I look at paintings unfinished, ideas unrealized, projects unstarted. That is, until a reframe from an artist friend this week, who beautifully reminded me that even creativity has a season.
My wise art friend reminded me that summer, especially as a mom, is for play and nourishing ourselves.
For collecting inspiration, memories, ideas so that when we venture back into the studio we are recharged with fresh perspectives.
Summer is for going outward and outside, for exploring and gathering. Where painting, for me, is the most solitary and inside activity I can do. When I’m in creating mode, I hermit - away from friends and family, to do the deep work of the making.
But what if this outward season of summer isn't actually the opposite of creativity, but instead it's creativity's essential counterpart? The gathering phase that makes the making possible.
This reframe helped me to see the long afternoons at the pool not as time stolen from my art, but as time spent collecting the magic golden light that will later find its way into my paintings.
The morning hikes and mid-day rests are my time to gather raw materials (leaves, flowers, photos, ideas, dreams) for work that will emerge later.
There's a rhythm to creative work that our productivity-obsessed culture rarely acknowledges.
The inhale and exhale.
The expansion and contraction.
The seasons of doing and being.
We applaud the finished painting but dismiss the quiet moments of simply collecting and noticing, of letting ideas simmer without forcing them into form.
For now, I'm practicing a different kind of presence. Instead of fighting the pull away from my easel, I'm leaning into it. I'm saying yes to the impromptu snow cone runs, the pool float read-a-thons, the long breakfast dates with friends.
I'm lining my pockets with the kind of beauty that can't be rushed, scheduled or optimized.
And something beautiful is starting to happen. Ideas are percolating in ways they can’t when I'm forcing them. Color combinations are revealing themselves in unexpected places—the smattering of greens as Austin blooms in the rain, the blues, peaches and yellows of a late summer sunset.
My creative mind isn't dormant; it's just working differently, more spaciously, more intuitively.
The guilt is slowly transforming into trust.
Trust that this season of gathering is as essential to my art as the season of making. Trust that when September arrives and the light changes and the rhythm shifts, I'll return to my studio not depleted but replenished. Not behind, but ahead—carrying a summer's worth of stories, sensations, and wonder.
Maybe the real creative act of summer isn't what we make with our hands.
Maybe it's what we make with our attention, our presence, our willingness to be fully where we are.
Maybe the art is in the living itself, in the way we collect moments like pressed flowers, saving them for the season when we'll need their beauty most.
So here's to the unproductive summers, the unfinished paintings, the unrealized projects. Here's to the season of yes, of abundance, of gathering light for the darker months ahead. Here's to remembering that creativity isn't just about output—it's about intake too. And sometimes, the most creative thing we can do is simply show up for our lives, arms wide open, ready to receive whatever gifts the season has to offer.
The studio will be waiting. The paintings will get finished. The ideas will find their form. But this summer, this golden, fleeting summer, it will never come again. And that's exactly why it deserves our full, undivided, beautifully unproductive attention.
What I’m loving these days :
Recently read (and loved) Dear Edward, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Abundance (a must read!) and just started Georgia O’ Keefe : Color and Conservation. I often read multiple books at a time, a light novel (especially in summer,) something educational / self-help, something artistic. This variety works for my many moods and keeps me reading daily.
My summer uniform of sneakers and easy summer dresses continues, I recently added this neutral pair of Sambas to my rotation - perfect for summer into fall.
This square sketchbook is my new favorite format for color studies - an easy practice that is continuing even as I summer.
A little color obsess of late with this boldest tomato orangey-red, especially this hat, this strapped phone case, and this bright and happy doormat.
Bookmarking these courses to revisit in the fall : Cy Twombly with Jeanne Oliver, HarvardX: We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy, and this beginner ceramics course. I love learning, both in person and online, and am always on the hunt for my next course!
How’s your summer, friends? Sending you much love, peace, rest, creativity and inspiration as you soak up all the goodness of the season.
And a special thanks to MG for the reminder of the goodness of summer:) xx.