From time to time I talk about or post about “Artist’s Dates.” Whenever I do, someone, or several someones ask me what is an artist’s date?

It is not about me dating an artist. In fact, while sometimes I do an artist date with someone else, they are not that kind of date at all.

The idea of an “artist’s date” is not mine. It belongs to writer, teacher and film maker  – Julia Cameron, who in the 1990’s write a book called “The Artist’s Way. – a spiritual path to higher creativity.”

It’s really about creative recovery – how someone who with a creative spirit who has lost their way, can find it back again, and reclaim their creativity. And in the late 1990’s that’s just where I was (not for the first or the last time.). I found this book, completely unaware that it had become the bible of recovering creatives worldwide, and began to do the book.

I say “do” the book instead of reading it, because there are things it requires of you. There are promises to make to ourselves, and things to think about and exercises.

And at the beginning are two commitments. The first are what Cameron calls “morning pages”. At it’s basic, it is journaling. Pouring your heart out for three pages. The idea is to get rid of the emotional blocks and free your mind to create.

The second are the “artist’s dates”. To commit, at least once a week, to do something that feeds your creative spirit. Go to a museum. Listen to music. Break from the regular world and immerse yourself  in something that will stilmulate you, make you think, make you feel.

I’ve aways done journaling, so that was easy. It’s been harder to keep the artist’s dates, but these days I am pretty good at keeping them. I do them on weekends (I have one planned for this weekend in fact.), and I do them when I travel for work (there are a zillion museums in DC and NYC).

I can’t tell you what they do for my spirit, how they keep me focused and vital creatively. Beats TV any time! And it keeps me in a state of receptiveness to the world around me, a state of looking, of seeing differently. It keeps me fresh.

So that my friends, is the artist’s date. I write about them sometimes, if I have been fortunate enough to have a camera with me whilst on them. Why write about them? Because as time goes on, you dear readers, have become like friends, and I just like to share my joy in the “dates”

Be well, Travel Wisely,

Tom

PS – the picture above is by Renoir. I got to see it on my artist’s date to The Phillips in DC between two appointments last week. I have seen it in books and prints of course, But in life it’s far larger, and far brighter and more vital than I ever imagined.  I was spellbound for my whole lunch hour and never got to see the rest of the exhibit. Next time!