Rachael and Lauren continue to answer listener questions! They discuss their silly, self-indulgent projects, ideas on building community, and navigating the more tedious aspects of living a creative life.
Rachael and Lauren continue to answer listener questions! They discuss their silly, self-indulgent projects, ideas on building community, and navigating the more tedious aspects of living a creative life.
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The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: This episode is brought to you by me, Rachael Renae, your creativity coach. Did you know that I offer one-on-one sessions? One of my favorite things is to help my fellow Chaotic Creatives gain a little bit of clarity in their creative practices and their lives. So you can book a session today. We can develop or refine your creative project idea. We can clarify your creative goals. We can map out what your big, juicy life looks like. Or we can build a system for prioritizing play and making it easy for you to incorporate. If you'd like to book a session, you can visit rachaelrenae.com, R-A-C-H-A-E-L-R-E-N-A-E.com/coaching.
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Rachael: I think you and I are both like mushy gushy big feelers and-
Lauren: Makes us sound like pervs.
Rachael: No, it's like a big gummy bear. Is being a big gummy bear also perverted? Wow. We started off strong with this episode and our minds are in the gutter and they're not coming out.
Lauren: That's fine.
Lauren: Hello and welcome to Chaotic Creatives, the show about embracing the chaos that comes with living a creative life.
Rachael: We are your hosts, two self-proclaimed Chaotic Creative gals. I'm Rachael Renae. I'm an artist, a creativity coach, and your internet hype gal.
Lauren: And I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I am a designer, lettering artist, muralist and chef. And welcome back to part two of our Q&A for season three. Yay.
Rachael: Yay! We love these questions that you submitted.
Lauren: Yes, thank you for the thoughtful questions. I feel like we could just do seasons full of these, but we like to do one Q&A segment every season at least.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: It's a nice way to do audience participation, and honestly, it makes it easier for us too, because then we don't have to think about what to talk about. It's a win-win.
Rachael: It is, and it's also validating because every time we open a question box, sometimes it's like, oh, we've talked about this, and maybe it hasn't been released yet, but we got some questions this time about mental health and what to do when you're feeling low emotionally, and that's actually how we started season three.
Lauren: So it's nice to know that our listeners and us are on the same wavelength.
Rachael: Yeah. The validation.
Lauren: Same chaotic wavelength.
Rachael: Yeah. We're in the chaotic realm.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay. Do you want to kick it off?
Lauren: Yeah. So we got a great question asking what is the silliest thing that each of us have ever made that just made us really happy and joyful?
Rachael: I love this question, and it also reminds me that Kristle asked us after we recorded, not season, episode three, why we stopped saying, what are you excited and what are you working on? We stopped because we're too long-winded, and we're like, "Oh shit, it's been an hour," and it adds 15 minutes at least because we both-
Lauren: Yeah, you think it would add five, but it's 15.
Rachael: Yeah, we're being realistic. So I was excited to hear this question, "What's the silliest thing you've ever made?" The first thing that popped into my head, and it's probably not the silliest, but it's one of the silly things I've made that I'm most excited about is, I can say this now 'cause it's not happening anymore, but I went on a date, a first date to Paris. And-
Lauren: Tres romantic!
Rachael: Tres romantic. Oui! And it was lovely. And also in preparation for that, we were talking about how we were just going to eat as many deviled eggs as we could because they have eggs mayo on a lot of menus at the cafes in Paris. And we were joking with each other and saying like, oh, well, we got to rank them. And so I was like, well, obviously I'm going to draw a ranking system and create a workbook. So I'm making this first date vacation work, and so I drew a ranking system and a score-sheet, and I bought little stampers and I printed them and sewed it into a booklet. And even though I'm not dating this person anymore, it was a really, really cool thing that I was really proud of, and it was truly just for personal enjoyment, just to have a silly time. And we both took it so seriously and brought our books out at each cafe, and it was one of the things I'm most proud of.
Lauren: Yeah, and you were jazzed to show your friends. And I think that using your creative skill set for personal projects, especially for gifts for people that you love, that's such a great brief and a way to direct your creative energy. If you're feeling low energy, you're like, "I don't know what to make," making a gift for someone is almost a surefire way to get some of that energy back. Because you feel so much conviction making this thing for someone you care about, and I think it's just a really fun use of your skills.
Rachael: Yeah. And I love show and tell. I do it a lot. I feel like anytime anyone comes to my house, I'm like, "Look at this. Look, I moved this artwork. I made this. Look at ... Wow!" And I do show and tell to my audience a lot, and that is part of it. Making a gift for someone is getting to do show and tell to them, and then they get to keep it.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: And I love gift giving also. So yeah, that tracks. So yeah, that's my answer, and I'm still really proud of that.
Lauren: That's a really beautiful answer to this really raunchy answer I'm about to give.
Rachael: Perfect. Balance, baby.
Lauren: If there are children in the room, close the ears.
Rachael: Earplugs in babies.
Lauren: Yes. So one of the silliest things that I've ever made was, I don't know, back in 2016, I ran a food blog called Peen Cuisine, which most of you can infer what that is, but it was a phallic food blog. It was just a funny idea that I had one day when talking with friends, and I was like, I'm going to make it. And so for a year I was producing and photographing dick-shaped foods, and the whole shtick was really just that they were phallic, they were just regular recipes.
Rachael: You weren't shaping them to look like dicks. It was just like it happened to have that shape, right?
Lauren: No, I was shaping them to look like dicks.
Rachael: Oh, you were? Oh, okay.
Lauren: Yeah. But it was just like, it was from a conversation that made my friends and I laugh and I was like, "I'm going to make that." And so I'm using my graphic design skills, photography skills, right? I'm cooking and I turned it into a little food blog and I don't know, I think I ended up making 20, 25 recipes. You can still find it on my website. We'll link that in the show notes.
Rachael: Yeah, we're linking Peen Cuisine.
Lauren: Last year, Kristle and I went to a design conference that I was speaking at, and I think she even took a clip of me doing a Q&A on stage of them asking about projects, and I mentioned it and the emcee was like, "Excuse me, Peen cuisine?"
And I think this was a great question that we wanted to answer because silly projects or passion projects that you're like, "This is so, I feel so much conviction around this, whether because it's for silliness or because of the intellect of the idea," clearly not in my case, it's like, "I just have to make this energy," is such good energy for combating creative inertia of feeling stuck, of feeling like I don't know what to make. Anytime you feel that glimmer of "excited to make this," especially as an adult who pays bills, follow that. If you can, follow that because it will give you so much creative gas in your tank to continue to make other things. Only good things have come from making silly projects, for me.
Rachael: And I think it's really good to give you insight into what you care about. And I didn't really think about that until just now because you ...
Lauren: What do I care about, Rachael?
Rachael: Well, Lauren, you hadn't gone to culinary school yet. Graphic design, making passion projects, we will ignore the phallic nature for now, but it was a confluence of things that you loved.
Lauren: You're making this sound worse.
Rachael: God, I'm digging myself a hole. Hey, this is a sex positive podcast. So yeah, 1000%.
Lauren: Yeah. Great.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Dicks are fine.
Rachael: Sometimes they're even more than fine. Some would say. Not all. If you hadn't been clear on food being one of the things that you were really interested in, I think you could look back at that passion project and be like, "I had 25 recipes that I wrote because I was excited about this silly idea," and it's showing you the things that you're jazzed about.
And with my workbook, I love experiences and I love connecting with people, and I love fostering connection through my creativity, and I think that has always been a through line. One of my taglines with my stationary business was fostering connection because sending a card or sending someone a sticker or realizing that you feel seen because I made a sticker that says I love therapy or something, that's fostering connection. So with my art, that's what I want to do.
And I hadn't considered that until this moment when you're talking about Peen Cuisine, how me making that book wasn't just about impressing my crush. It was about how can I make something that perhaps is magical because it's happening in Paris, but it doesn't have to be happening in Paris, you can make a deviled egg thing and have a deviled egg tour in your hometown? Making magic out of mundane activities and connecting with people is something that I really, really love and I love to use my creativity to do that. So by following that spark, that like, "Oh my gosh, I have to make this," it's shining a light on what you really love and what fulfills you, and you should chase it.
Lauren: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. When I was studying advertising, there was a quote from this famous ad guy. Was it? Okay, it's either him or Steve Jobs. Sorry. But the quote is-
Rachael: Steve Jobs has enough props.
Lauren: I thought you were going to say he's dead.
Rachael: He's also dead.
Lauren: Factually true. The quote is, "Creativity is just connecting the dots." Oh, that is a Steve Jobs quote. The George Lois quote I was thinking of is, "I don't ..." What is it? "I don't come up with ideas, I discover ideas." He was talking about how he just connects things, basically.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Where the material is already there, you just have to go find it. And I think to your point about following the spark and realizing the patterns in your work, the things you're drawn to, you actually only learn, tied into the previous episode of how do I talk about what I do, you really only have that conviction about what your work is all about and the purpose of it and what you do once you've done a bunch of stuff and you're like, oh, this is the through line. I'm drawn to things that facilitate this or foster this, and it takes a little bit of self-reflection, but then also just a lot of making. You have to have a lot of dots to be able to connect in order to come up with those, have those aha moments of what the purpose of your work is.
Rachael: Absolutely. So there's a reason why we come up with ideas like Peen Cuisine and execute them because it gives us insight into our creative practice.
Lauren: Yeah. You'll get so much more insight. Okay, I'll speak for myself. I got so much more insight into my creative process. I started to hone my food styling skills. I started writing recipes.
Rachael: This is almost 10 years ago.
Lauren: This is almost 10 years ago. Nothing came from it. I was hoping that having this in my portfolio would help get me a cookbook deal someday. That still might be the case, but this is almost 10 years ago. I did this for a year in my spare time, just 'cause it was fun for me. I'd cook a recipe on the weekend, photograph it. This is stuff I'd be doing anyways, and I just tweaked a couple things to make it into a cohesive project.
Rachael: And a dick shape.
Lauren: And so I learned so much more about my creative process and gained so many more creative skills and a portfolio piece by doing this project than I would've by just sitting at my desk thinking about what is the point of my work? What do I want to make? I'm interested in these things. You just have to learn by doing. You learn a lot about yourself by doing, and you actually get clarity by trying a lot of stuff.
Rachael: Yeah. I think I've said in a previous episode how I tried the stained-glass class and then I was like, "I love this. I'm going to buy all this stuff." And then I got home and I did it and I was like, "Oh, I just love hanging out with my friends." It wasn't the creative practice at all, and the only way that I would've known that is to try it and to quote, unquote, fail.
Lauren: Totally. Similar to what I learned from going to culinary school, big endeavor, expensive year long, but from going to, after being freshly trained, I'm like, "Oh, I actually can discern now what I like about food." Instead of saying, "I love food," it's so vague, I've been able to hone into like, "I'm actually still a home cook at heart." I love having a stocked pantry and making what you can with what you have and that pantry sauce that I made you.
Rachael: Oh, it was so good.
Lauren: Thank you.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: There's a real, just real world practicality to home cooking, especially as a self-employed creative person, feeding myself is important, and other than ordering out all the time, I don't want to do that, I like taking the time to cook my own meals. And that was important to recognize from culinary school of like, oh, I like hosting dinner parties. I like cooking for people. I like home cooking. I like being able to have leisurely meals with good conversation. I don't really want to work in a restaurant. I don't want cooking to become a stressful thing. I'd rather cook for people that I know or convene in a small group rather than a The Bear environment.
Rachael: Oh, man!
Lauren: Which might be appealing for other people. If I was 18, absolutely. I would be like, "Put me in, Coach!" But I'm like 34 and I just want to have a nice, I want to have wine and cheese and crackers and not have to worry if dinner is 30 minutes later than I said it would be because I'm a little bit slow. And people can just, it's actually like a feature, not a bug.
Rachael: Yeah. It's part of the evening where we can connect.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. That's good. Love that. Shall we do another question?
Lauren: We should do many other questions.
Rachael: Okay. One that I-
Lauren: Forgot we ... I ended the last episode saying we were going to answer the question from the previous episode about how do you respond to people where, so the person asked the question saying, "I've been doing sewing, and a lot of people have told me I should sell these things that I'm making, but I don't want to turn it into a business, I just want to do it for fun. How do I respond?" And you want to start and I can jump in?
Rachael: Oh, sure. Yeah. I took a little peek at the clock. We got halfway into the episode before we clickbait, paywall. Just kidding. This episode is free, but you can pay us on Patreon if you want to.
Lauren: Nice. Mid-roll plug.
Rachael: Hey, we don't have mid-ads yet, so might as well do our own. Yeah, I love this question. I think it's the dilemma of the chaotic creative or any person who's jazzed about their art. I feel like that is a compliment coming from most people, and I want you to share your example of that if you feel confident, but I think people see work and the effort that goes into it and the maybe aesthetic quality of something, and they're impressed, and so they're like, "Oh my gosh, I could never do that. This person is good enough to sell their work."
And so it's like if you can shift what they're saying to a compliment being like, oh, they're just admiring what I have created-
Lauren: Instead of pressuring. Yeah.
Rachael: Yes. That's helpful. And if people keep asking you or maybe phrase it in a way that's like, "Can you make me one?" what I've done, and I get this a lot, especially with sewing, sewing is such a exploratory process for me. It takes me a long time. I don't rush myself. It's like the one type of project where I don't go fast. I mean I'm working quickly, but it takes me a long time to noodle out ideas, and it would cost, like you with ceramics, it would cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars if I wanted to sell my work and make my time back, and I don't want to do that. It's more a practice for me to connect with myself and think about my ideas.
And so I have several pairs of pants that I've made with two toned legs, and people are always like, "Oh my gosh, can you make me some?" And I always say, "Actually, just so for myself, I'm not interested in making things for other people, but here's the pattern." And then people are like, "Well, I don't know how to sew it." And I'm like, "Maybe you could take a class." Because-
Lauren: Sounds like a you problem.
Rachael: Yeah. And I have blocked people who consistently ask me to sell them stuff because sometimes it's obnoxious-
Lauren: Good for you.
Rachael: ... and it's a challenging question, and it definitely depends on the nuance and the tone. I also specifically remember going to the post office and the woman working at the post office was like, "Oh my gosh, where'd you get those pants?" And I was like, "Oh, I made them." She's like, "You got to start an Etsy store." And she was just so excited 'cause she was just like, "Whoa!"
I was interpreting that as she can't comprehend taking the time to make pants like that herself, and that's okay. And so I took it only as a compliment, and I was like, "Yeah, maybe someday." I don't have to be like, "No, I just make this for myself," as I'm sending a package. But if people are pressuring you, you can say, "This is a personal practice for me and I'm not interested in actually making money for my work. This is about personal fulfillment. I don't want to put pressure on my work to make money." And that's okay.
Lauren: Yeah. That is okay. I get the same thing with the pom-pom earrings that I make. And what's so funny is ... I will share that story that you were talking about, but with the pom-pom earrings, people always ask, "Do you sell these?" And I always say, "No 'cause they take so long for me to make." But then last year I tried hosting that workshop teaching people how to make them, and so few people signed up that I was like, "Oh, interesting."
And so yeah, if you're curious about selling your work, if someone says you should sell these, or if you yourself are like, "I wonder what it would be like to sell at a market; that seems cool," it's worth getting the experience to find out the answer to your own question. And if you hate it, don't do it again. Now you know, definitively. If you like some of it but didn't like some of it, maybe you try a different market or you try something else. There's so much in between, "I refuse to sell this," or, "This is my entire life," where you can kind of dabble, especially what I've been talking about this whole time with culinary stuff.
I have design as my source of income, which allows me to take my time with if and when I monetize culinary because I know it's a grind, but yeah, it really depends on, I know it gets annoying if people keep saying, "You should sell these, you should sell these." It is a compliment that people who don't make stuff themselves, that's all they know what to say really. They're just saying it's really great.
The story I was going to share is when we got this question, I was like, oh, it reminds me of when I was in high school, my high school boyfriend's dad would do this adorable thing where anytime that someone made something, like cooked something homemade and he would try it and he liked it, he would say, "Oh, this is so delicious. I would pay this much money for it at a restaurant or a bakery," as his way of saying, "This is valuable. This is restaurant quality."
Rachael: Like, "You have talent."
Lauren: Yeah, "You've got talent, kid."
Rachael: Which is endearing.
Lauren: Yeah, it was so endearing.
Rachael: Because it's not like he's saying, "Oh, you could market this, exploit your skills that you enjoy doing and make money." It's just like, "Wow, I would pay so much money for this." Yeah.
Lauren: And I think a thought I just had was giving people a generous read on that, I think that language is all we have really been given in a capitalist society of commerce. Commerce is seen as the ultimate goal with whatever skills you have, where it is for a lot of people, like I've monetized a lot of my skills. I'm grateful for that. That's why I have the life that I have. But you get to discern which of those skills you do and don't monetize. That's up to you. There's no formula. Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. That's a great question and something that I feel like people encounter a lot. And it's truly one of the reasons why I do the coaching work that I do, because so many people react in that way because they've never given themselves permission to try making a pair of pants or a crochet project or taking a class because they don't think that they're creative, and it's like, "Ooh, maybe you should try it." And I'm not saying that you should respond in that way to everyone, but-
Lauren: I'm kind of into it.
Rachael: Yeah. Like, "Oh my gosh, it was so easy. You should take a class and figure out to do it." Yeah. Okay. What's next?
Lauren: You have anything on your list?
Rachael: Oh, yeah. Actually, since we're kind of talking about sewing, I had a question how to find specifically a sewing community, but we can broaden the answer to any creative practice, but how to find a sewing community, especially one that's not conservative, was the question that came in. So my, I guess initial reaction was maybe this person lives in a smaller town, and because the place that I grew up, definitely there are a lot of people sewing, but it's more traditional and definitely more conservative. And I like this question because I feel like finding your creative community helps you find community in general. Finding people that can relate to you is so important. I get so much value out of us doing this podcast because the three of us just gab and it's awesome. And if I didn't have that, like after we recorded the last episode, I was like, oh my gosh, I came here and I was so crabby and I feel so much better because creative community is really important, even if it's just one other person.
So I think there's a couple answers, practical answers I have to that question about finding community, especially not conservative community. I think we talked about being sex positive. We're pretty leftist in our leanings, to be mild about it, I guess, for me. I think you have to seek it out. So can you take a class? Can you find a Facebook group for Quilters for Palestine or something? I follow a couple of those pages. The internet is great for those types of things. Finding online community around your same values with your same skill sets, I think that that's one beautiful part of the internet.
Doing some digging, asking other people, if you're looking for in-person community, can you create something yourself? Maybe you are looking for specifically a sewing community, but can you join another type of creative group or start one yourself like, "Hey, I'm doing a sewing night where we talk about queer politics," or something, so that you're adding that qualifier to kind of, again, weed out the people that aren't your people right away. I know that in smaller communities it's harder to do this, and so I do think that the online option is a great way to connect with people with similar views and interests and values as you, but in-person community is obviously really great.
I feel like I'm rambling, but in summary, online community, start one yourself, find a class. If you're buying fabric at a local fabric store, if sewing is the example we're using, chat with the people that are there. Ask them what they're working on. I think a lot of people, myself included, expect that community is just going to happen for us when we need to make it happen for ourselves. Ask the person at the coffee shop who's working how their day is, ask them what their name is. Go to the library, see if anyone is hanging out in the quilting section of the library. Talk to your neighbor. Find ways to connect with people first, because I do think that ultimately most people are good and do want to connect, and maybe you can find some common ground and start a group together.
Do you have any answers to creative community, especially as it relates to not conservative sort of value-driven creating?
Lauren: Well, the first place my mind went was the only in-person creative class that I've gone to consistently over the years is ceramics, and it's been really interesting because in-person classes, it's like a bunch of strangers coming together for one purpose once a week, and you get to know some people, you gravitate towards some people in the class. Discussions just naturally happen in class, and you can kind of suss out like, "Oh, maybe I'd want to get coffee with this person or this person." I've made friends through ceramics that way. And it's just kind of an organic process.
It's interesting too because when it comes to trying to find aligned values, I'd say that the younger people in our ceramics class lean more progressive. You can kind of tell based on stuff that we talk about. The teacher, I think it's Ricky who said this, sometimes if we get into discussions, he has a rule where he's like, "If anybody in the room is uncomfortable with us talking politics, you can just, I don't know, say a safe word or something and we'll stop." Which I thought was nice because there is something, while everything is political that we do, not every space calls for politics to be brought into it 24/7, I guess. There's a weird social, I don't know, current in a room where you're like, okay, this might not be the time or place to bring up Free Palestine while we're learning how to throw on the wheel with a bunch of 60-year-old ladies.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I think trying to go to classes and see who you connect with there, not every class you're going to connect with somebody.
And it's also good to, being in community with people that you're never going to align a hundred percent with, I think is important to build that tolerance too.
Rachael: Yes, absolutely. I was going to say that is if ... We have to also get comfortable with discomfort. It's the desensitizing, the rejection kind of thing where it's, online, it is really easy to find people who have all the same values or you are projecting all the same values on to them because you're not interacting with them in real life. But we all live in community and every single person has slightly different views about things, and we aren't going to agree a hundred percent all the time. And so building tolerance for that like, "Ooh, yeah, I didn't like that, but I'm not going to fight this person about this thing. I'm not going to change their minds."
Lauren: Yeah. You can also, once you're in community through sewing or through ceramics, something that like, here's our sticky connection point, once you have a little bit of rapport built, that is when online it might turn into a fight, a comment, like keyboard whatever, but in person, if someone says something transphobic or something, you could push back and be like, "Hey, I actually don't feel that way because of this," or, "I see where you're coming from," or, "My dad used to think that way, but then he learned this." When you actually have some rapport and trust built up between people because of a love of art, I think there is some room to push back in a way that doesn't cause chaos.
Rachael: Yeah. Because you have that respect, the mutual respect, because you've established a relationship, and that is truly how we're going to be changing minds. It's not shouting into the echo chamber on the internet. It's small conversations. Yeah, absolutely.
I think using, I'm going off on a tangent a little bit, but I used to get really upset with my mom about certain things and I would just not be able to hold it in, and it'd be like, "Why do you think that way?" When it was just like she just didn't have the same information as me, but my reaction was like ... I couldn't-
Lauren: What was that?
Rachael: Yeah, exactly. And I'm so grateful that I have come a long way in my personal growth and recognize that, oh, wow, yelling at my mom isn't going to change her mind, but having a conversation is going to help her understand, because I maybe thought that way too until someone that I cared about expressed a different viewpoint and I thought about it, and so yeah, I think building the trust over the commonality of sewing or ceramics or art is a great point.
Lauren: Yeah. And then I agree with your point about starting your own thing with a purpose to try to say, "Hey, here are my values. Here's what I'm going to do creatively. I'm going to host a night or an event, even if it's small to let's gather." I think being the catalyst for your own change that you want to see is good in that way to meet people.
I also was thinking maybe there's a way to reverse engineer it where if you start with the politics first, maybe you go to a DSA meeting or you go to a protest and you try to connect with some people that might be interested in those things, obviously there might not be overlap, but if that's very important to you that people share the same values or at least this similar value, you could try to go in the other way and do it that way.
Rachael: That's a really good point. Yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: Or volunteer for something around a cause that you care about. That might be a way to create connection and then be like, "Hey, do you want to come over and sew or collage or whatnot?"
Rachael: I do also think that's a sustainable way to approach activism too, because if you're tying it to something that you already do and already love, it's a more sustainable practice than being like, "I'm not an organizer, I'm an introvert. I love to sew, but I guess I'll try to organize some big boycott or something." That's going to be more draining for you than trying to rally ideas around sewing and maybe raffling off your work to donate money or whatever it is. Finding there's a place for all of us.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I also just want to add one more thing that is not really related to this question, but about building community as it relates to attending a studio space or a class. I am noticing that I am starting to have more intergenerational friendships at my ceramic studio, which I think is something that is a lack in my life.
Lauren: Oh, same.
Rachael: And I think it's really, really beautiful to hear. There are a few women that I've talked to just kind of about my creative path and my creative work and hearing how they've navigated their careers and their creative journeys, and maybe they're 10 to 20 years older than me, it feels so good to talk to someone who's on the same path but further along and has more knowledge and different life experiences than I do. And it's been a really lovely experience that I wasn't anticipating.
My ceramic studio is so incredible, and I'm so grateful for that space because literally sometimes I go there and I just talk to people. I don't intend to just talk to people; I go there to work and then I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you. What have you been up to?" I know what this person's doing and somebody brought food and we're chatting about this and it's connecting with people that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. And that's a really great bonus too, of taking a class and joining a community space in that way around something that you all are interested in.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah.
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Lauren: Hi. You know how we're always yapping on this podcast about trying new things in your creative business, this episode is brought to you by one of my creative experiments, my mural mockups. You get 10 high resolution Photoshop mockups with easy to edit smart objects, which in non-creative dorkspeak means that you can drag your drawing into the mockup and it'll instantly make your art look like a mural on a real wall. Pretty cool, right?
Fun fact, Kristle, who you all know and love as the editor of this podcast, shot all of the photos with these mockups, so I love that. These mockups are perfect for muralists and aspiring muralists who want to shorten the time it takes them to add mural images to their portfolios and present their work to clients. You can head to homsweethom.com/mural-mockups or the link in the episode description to check them out. Okay, now back to the show.
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Rachael: What's next?
Lauren: We got a question about how do you balance the tedious bits of your creative practice or running your creative business with the joyful parts of it? And I think that's just a very real question of, on this podcast, we talk so much about following your intuition, following the sparks of curiosity and joy, and does this feel good? I'm going to do more of it. At the same time, when it comes to, even if you're not turning this into a professional monetized thing, having a creative practice or getting anything accomplished in a project is going to have some more tedious bits. There might be some admin stuff.
Rachael: Taxes.
Lauren: Yeah, totally. Or even just if you're organizing a community art show, that's a lot of admin. It's heart creative, but it's a lot of admin. Same with hosting a creative workshop. You might love putting together the workbook and picking out the color pencil that you're going to put out with each set, but you're like, "Oh, now I got to make an event write?" And then you just shut down.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: And I think it's just being an adult about, okay, here are the 10 steps to make this happen. And just being like, okay, some of the parts of this process aren't going to be all art. They're going to be a little bit annoying or a little bit boring, but in service of the ultimate goal, can I figure out a way to get this done? Whether it's breaking that up into smaller chunks, inviting a friend over to also do their tedious tasks. Can you make it a little more joyful for yourself, whether it's creating a container or a ritual or something, or just being like, all right, this is the eating my vegetables of doing this project.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: What are your thoughts?
Rachael: Yeah, I love all of that. I want to ask you before I share my opinion, do you have any rituals that you do for your tedious tasks that are safe to share? We've already talked about dicks a bunch, so.
Lauren: I don't have any consistent rituals. Going out to a coffee shop to get my admin stuff done is usually helpful, so change of scenery is usually good. Especially if you work from home, it's easy to throw a load of laundry-
Rachael: We love laundry.
Lauren: ... do the dishes. If you're at a coffee shop, you've already gotten dressed. The accountability of just strangers around you also on their laptops is very helpful for the tedious stuff.
One thing Kristle and I did recently that was so helpful is she came over on a non-work day and we did admin day for our personal lives where we sat together and she got her tax stuff together, I sent a bunch of emails I've been meaning to send.
Rachael: Okay!
Lauren: And we did a mini version of going to a coffee shop where it's like, "Hey, you have stuff to get done, I have stuff to get done." Because we noticed, we see each other so often where it's like you can kind of pick up on the stuff that each of us complain about week after week. It's like, "Oh, I still haven't done this. I still haven't done this." And I was like, what if we set aside five hours to try to knock out a good chunk of it? And we did.
Rachael: I love that.
Lauren: And that was incredible. So, yeah.
Rachael: I think I love that idea in theory, but I'm such a yapper that-
Lauren: You and I can't do it. Kristle and I did it.
Rachael: We have tried, we've tried so many times to co-work, like, "Let's co-work together," and we bring our computers and that shit doesn't even leave the bag. We are gabbing. And that's okay.
Lauren: Yep.
Rachael: But we know that. That's good. I like that you guys did that. I think I also really like going to a coffee shop. If I have website updates or I'm writing a course or something like that, I love to go and have a change of scenery, so I'm not distracted, 'cause I love to do chores as procrastination. I talk about that in my workshop.
Lauren: Yeah. Just remove yourself from the environment where you can procrastinate with chores.
Rachael: Exactly. I also always feel better when I get dressed, and a lot of times I don't get dressed on the weekends. I'm in my cozy clothes, but if I take a little bit of effort, even if I'm still cozy but style an outfit, and I'm always going to do that if I'm going to leave the house. I'm not embarrassed to go out in sweatpants, but I'm going to style a sweatpants outfit.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: So I feel more confident and more productive already by just getting dressed and leaving the house. So love the coffee shop thing. But if I'm at home, sometimes I will give myself a time limit, and it's like when things really add up and it's like I have so much admin stuff to do, I have to send this email, I have to calculate this, send this invoice, whatever, I'll be like, "Okay, I have 20 minutes. I'm going to set a timer. How much can I get done?" And then I reward myself by being like, "Okay, now I have 20 minutes to do whatever I want, whether that's scroll on my phone or lay on the couch or go for a walk or do laundry." But I make little timed challenges for myself-
Lauren: Cute!
Rachael: ... and it works. Especially if I have a weekend where I'm trying to pack a lot in, but I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I need to get this website update done." So yeah, that's one thing that I wanted to say about the tedious versus joy, but I also in, and I think this question wasn't specifically for creativity, I assume it was, but it wasn't written that way. So I think also in a broader sense, the tedious versus the joyous, we have to have both. If everything was joy all the time, we wouldn't notice it. We would become desensitized to the joy. And so when I experience something that's tedious or annoying, of course it's easy for me to say right now, but in the moment I'm miserable and mad at myself, but being able to recognize that I being annoyed and miserable, I'm creating capacity for more joy, I'm going to-
Lauren: Because the bar is so low?
Rachael: Well, no, because I'm going to appreciate it more. I'm stretching the spectrum of tedium or misery, joy, and I'm kind of thinking about maybe not tedium, but depressive episodes when things are really hard or something really bad happens. Of course, I try to take time to grieve and feel my feelings, but also recognizing this is creating more capacity for joy and will help me appreciate those higher moments. So I think you and I are both mushy gushy big feelers and think-
Lauren: Makes us sound like pervs.
Rachael: No, it's a big gummy bear with feelings.
Lauren: Cute.
Rachael: Is being a big gummy bear also perverted? Wow, we started off strong with this episode and our minds are in the gutter and they're not coming out.
Lauren: That's fine.
Rachael: You're getting a taste of what our off-line conversations are.
Lauren: I think that's an important caveat. I'm going to try to tie this into a lesson.
Rachael: Sure.
Lauren: You and I, throughout this entire podcast, are being our authentic selves, but we are calibrating for the fact that this is going out to the public. In one of the earlier episodes in the season where you were like, "This is what you do all day, this is what I think you do all day," you left some stuff out that probably wasn't good for them going out to the public that I'm pretty sure you think I do all day, and I appreciate that.
Rachael: Yeah. Yeah. I think you can be your authentic self without giving your whole self away to the internet. And if your idea of being authentic is trauma dumping to get a reaction, that's not being authentic either. It's like, let me share this because I'm going through it because I want to show you that you can get through it. Or, here's the lesson that I learned. Not just like I'm sad, feel bad for me. And I'm not saying any of our listeners are doing that, but I feel like there are sometimes things that go viral on the internet, like, "My husband left me at the altar," and of course I'm clicking on that shit. I don't know who that is, but I'm like-
Lauren: Rachael!
Rachael: I know! But then I realize what I'm doing and I'm like, "No, I don't want to know!" This is clickbait!
Lauren: That's fine. Everyone has their own ... we all have our weird base instinct to be like, "I got to know!"
Rachael: I'm just nosy. I'm such a nosy person.
Lauren: I'm not a nosy person at all, other than like, for people that I know, I want to know about them sometimes. But strangers, mm-mm.
Rachael: Most of the time not, but okay, and I will say a lot of the ones that I click on are someone stitching it and it's them being funny about the thing. And so then I'm like, okay, I'm in the right space, and then I'm giggling about something and then I watch the whole thing anyway.
Lauren: I'm coming from the perspective of I've been trying to stay off the internet to protect my remaining brain cells, and I just feel too frazzled when I ... Because can't resist either, and so I've set much tighter parameters for myself online in the last couple years that I have tried to make space for just kind of like the tedium from this previous question of, yeah, it's tedious to do some stuff. Even like you said, cleaning your house or doing the dishes or whatever that is in your creative work too. Maybe you need to send emails to art buyers. Maybe you need to source paper for a project that you're working on. Internet research is so tedious sometimes, it doesn't feel great. Break it up into small chunks until it doesn't feel good anymore. But I'm trying to make more space for just slower, like, "Al right, this is what we're doing today."
Rachael: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good point. When I think about what my dream life looks like, it's a slow life where I can decide what I want to do each day. And knowing that I can try to tackle the admin stuff in the first whatever time, breaking it out and trying to give myself structure, but I'm not ... I like rough frameworks; I'm not good at very hard scheduled structure.
Lauren: It depends on what style you prefer. The person I wanted to reference, I know I talk about them all the time, but when this question came up, I mentioned our friend Andy J. Pizza from Creative Pep Talk. I remember him sharing a story, I think on his podcast, about how he hates emails. He hates having to send emails, having to read emails. So he's done this thing where he tried to attach something he hates with something he loves to try to offset how much he hates emails. And so I don't know if he's still doing this, but he told me that he responds to emails, he'll draw himself a bath, like a bubble bath, and sit in the bath with his little bath tray and send emails from there, and it makes it less bad for him, and that's his ritual routine, and I love that.
I don't know if it would work for me, but I think that if there's, similar to inviting a friend over to do the thing that they also need to do, if you can come up with creative ways to offset some of the, "Ugh, I really don't want to do this," and just make it a little more enjoyable for you, there is space between I hate this and I love this, that I think we as adults, creative adults, need to get creative and navigate and explore and figure out how can I take this from a, "I hate this," a 10 to a 6.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Because it's possible.
Rachael: Absolutely, and I think it's possible in the tedium of life too. If making dinner is tedious for you, like it is for me, how can I make it a challenge? How can I, "Oh, I want to try to incorporate this herb in this dish"? Making little challenges out of what you consider mundane, I think is how we can make life magical.
Lauren: Think about the classic, instead of throwing trash away, people shoot it like a hoop from across the room. That's the OG version of turning mundane things into play.
Rachael: Yeah. Before phones existed. Yeah.
Lauren: Oh my God, I know, it's like shooting hoops into the trash can, reading the shampoo ingredients when you're on the toilet.
Rachael: Yeah, the youths, they don't know what they're missing. Yeah. Knowing every preservative that's going into our-
Lauren: We have time for one more. We should start to wrap it up.
Rachael: Yeah, I think we should talk about, there's one more that we didn't get to on my list, and maybe it's on your list too. I was trying to split up the questions and then I just repeated some of them.
Lauren: That's fine.
Rachael: Avoiding decision fatigue, how to prioritize what to work on. I think that's a good one to wrap up on.
Lauren: Yeah. This person wrote in saying that they have so many ideas. They realistically know that they can't do them all, but then they get decision fatigue and what to prioritize. So the question was how do we manage that? And I really relate to that.
Rachael: Same.
Lauren: I don't know if there's a perfect solution for it other than it is better to pick an idea to do. It will alleviate so much more of your creative angst. Because once you're in the process of making that idea, you won't be thinking about the other ones you've committed. I think practicing committing to something for a bit, seeing it through, set shorter parameters. Instead of saying, "I'm going to start a food blog," which might sound daunting, say, "My goal this year is to create one new recipe per month," or something. Or if the timeframe seems too long, shorten the timeframe and make the project smaller where it's like, "Hey, this month I am going to cook one new recipe per week," or, "I want to make one painting." Just commit to one thing, see it through, and then evaluate from there.
Rachael: Yeah. I am trying to do that by completing one sewing project a month because completing a creative project is like drugs.
Lauren: Yeah, it feels so good.
Rachael: So does starting one.
Lauren: Yeah, that's true.
Rachael: And I too have this, I have so many ideas, my Notes app is full of stuff, and I think there may have been a question, I don't think we got to it, but about having enough energy when you do have a day job, having enough energy to work on your creative hobby, getting stuck in that ideal loop. We've talked about this before; it kind of a little bit scratches the itch of the creative idea. I have so many Pinterest folders saved that like, "Ooh, I want to try this," and when I have 30 minutes of free time and I scroll Pinterest, I feel like I'm getting that dopamine from doing a project, but it's not the same as starting one. And I do start a lot of them, but actually completing one is like boss level shit.
I have such a hard time completing things because I very much follow my creative energy with creative projects because I don't sell them. So it's like, "What feels fun today? What do I want to work on?" But I'm trying to have a little bit more discipline with finishing things, and one of my goals is to finish a sewing project each month. But I think, like you said, just trying one and maybe if you have an endless list, go through and pick 12 and try to focus on one each month, or I'm going to spend this year honing in my ceramic skill. I think I can definitely relate to the idea of like, "Oh my gosh, I don't have enough time in my day, in my life, to do all of these things," but spinning in the prep mode is also not helping us.
Lauren: Yeah, you'll feel very agitated.
Rachael: Yes.
Lauren: So just choosing one, even if you're not sure it's the right one, 'cause you'll never be sure, you'll learn so much more about yourself and discover things about your creative process from just doing that one thing. The other ideas will still be there.
One other way, depending on how your brain works, if you want to be practical about this decision fatigue thing is I think time and resources are very real constraints, and so if you say, "I have a million ideas," but if you use the filter of like, "Oh, do I actually have time? How much time do I have right now?" And you're like, "I actually have four hours a week," that probably is going to knock a lot of your projects or a lot of your ideas off the list for now because maybe there are some projects that you just want to do that are just going to take a lot of time. Maybe there are ways you can do the bite-sized version, but if that doesn't feel satisfactory to you, then use your actual constraint of how much time do I have to narrow down the list?
Rachael: Yeah. I think also thinking about that from a "What can I squeeze into five-minute increments between meetings?" It's easier to draw than it is to pull out all of your ceramics supplies or go to the studio, finding something that maybe has a lower barrier to entry. And I also want to say, what one are you most excited about? Because that one, you'll make time for, like my egg project.
Lauren: Yeah. Excitement is a really powerful motivator.
Rachael: Yeah, And I think the list of projects, just picking one and starting, yes, those ideas will always be there, but some of them also will stop resonating with you.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: And that's okay. Choose the one that resonates with you the most.
Lauren: Take your best; your best guess is enough.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. I think if there's a takeaway from this is go with your gut, and that actually is the correct answer. There's no software that you can plug all your ideas into that's going to tell you the perfect one. You just have to go ... Your intuition. We've talked about this so many times.
Rachael: Yeah. Your intuition is ChatGTP.
Lauren: You're plugging into your own intuition. You are being a self-starter. You being in the driver's seat of this whole thing, making it happen, is incredibly empowering, and you will be so much better off from choosing imperfectly and doing it than six months from now being like, "Argh!" still.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think if we practice leaning into that intuition and following what's exciting, following the fun, like you've said before, it also strengthens that intuition and you're refining your vision and your learning about yourself, and that is what will help you find the next best project after you finish this one, or after you abandon this one 'cause you realize it's not right for you.
Lauren: Yeah. You'll know pretty quickly.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we're at a well over time, but I do want to ask you, you have one minute to answer this question, two sentences. What are you working on that you're most excited about?
Lauren: Moving. I'm packing up my apartment right now.
Rachael: Yeah. Perfect. Okay, too.
Lauren: I think that is all ... That's taken up such a big chunk of my life right now. I'm excited to ...
Rachael: It's okay if that's the answer.
Lauren: Yeah, that's it.
Rachael: You're noodling on your layout of your new apartment, you're thinking about that kind of stuff.
Lauren: Yeah, I'm going to see it. Yeah, that's true.
Rachael: This weekend. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. It's so annoying. Every time I'm designing ... I have the whole room laid out in Illustrator, and I'm like, this is a bad use of my time right now. There's so many other things I need to be doing.
Rachael: But you're excited about it.
Lauren: I am excited about it, but again, I don't know if this is, I'm not trying to make this good or bad, but I have to tell myself like, realistically, this isn't a good use of my time. Even if it's exciting to me, that is kind of the caveat to some of the follow-the-fun advice of like, I have to be my own parents sometimes and be like, "Hey, super fun, but it's bedtime."
Rachael: That's balancing the tedium.
Lauren: It's bedtime.
Rachael: Yeah. It's balancing the joy in the tedium. Okay, yeah, maybe you shouldn't spend two hours doing that, but can you spend five minutes and be like, "Okay, I'm giving myself five minutes to just have this as a little treat because I sent some emails today," or something?
Lauren: Yes. Yeah. But for me it usually is two hours, so I got to say, "Go to bed."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: What about you? What are you working on that you're excited about?
Rachael: Yeah, I have an idea for a quilt, a project, not like a blanket quilt, like a functional piece, but more of a wall-hanging art piece, and I was in that agitated state yesterday. Yesterday was my only free evening after work, and I was like, "Do I want to start this? But it's nice out, I should go for a walk. I should go to the ceramic studio 'cause I have projects that need to be worked on." And instead of doing any of those things, I scrolled my phone for two hours and then I tried to record myself talking about it, and then it was just like, "Oh my God, bitch, go to bed." And then I tried and I was like wide awake, and I was like, "I'm going to watch this sports documentary."
And then my friend was driving by and she's like, "Do you want me to come over?" And I was like, "Yeah." And then I talked a lot and then I was able to sleep. But yeah, the agitation is really real. Decision fatigue is real. Anyway, A quilt project.
Lauren: Nice.
Rachael: Okay. We did that in three. That was good.
Lauren: Wow.
Rachael: Look at us.
Lauren: Look at us. Wow.
Rachael: Okay, we will wrap up. I already midway pitched Patreon, but we have definitely opened up our, what did you call it? The-
Lauren: Oh, like listener-supported ads-
Rachael: Listener-supported ads.
Lauren: ... where our premium tier on Patreon is you get an ad, you get ad space on our podcast, and you can tell us about your creative project. We'll tell people about it, whether it's a show you're doing, something you're selling, a class you're teaching. We thought it'd be a fun way before we get brand sponsors. And maybe, who knows, maybe we'll have brand sponsors by now, but we thought it would just be a nice peer to peer kind of thing.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: We want to hear about your projects. Other people do too.
Rachael: The classifieds.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Rachael: We do need to make that the newsletter. Yeah, so check us out on Patreon, linked in the show notes, linked in our bio. And if you can't support in that way, please share an episode, your favorite episode, whether it's this one or another one, with someone you think that would find it valuable. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.
Lauren: See you. Bye.
Rachael: Bye.