I’ve generally been feeling pretty stuck with my artistic process lately.
It’s been quite frustrating because I have so many ideas floating around in my head, but energetically, I’ve been wasting a whole lot of time doing nothing. While on one hand I’ve been framing this winter season as a ‘gestational’ period—where something is cooking underneath—on the other hand, the juicy gratification of making more art hasn’t been coming to fruition.
Today, after doom-scrolling instagram for the 1000th time, I forced myself to sit down with a larger art piece I’ve been slowly chipping away at. When I set the more complex piece down for the day, I still didn’t feel quite satisfied. I was still feeling the creative juices flowing. I could feel my emotional state being agitated. I could feel myself wanting to distract and return to doom scrolling or mindlessly making laps around the house, and was frustrated that I couldn’t quite figure out a way to channel whatever was stirring around inside of me.
After feeling a little antsy at the end of the week, I noticed I was desperately needing not to numb out, distract myself, or ignore my emotional and creative state. I wanted to sit with my feelings and couldn’t quite figure out how to do that in a way that felt satisfying. I kept shifting between doing fidget-y busy work and doing absolutely nothing. I wasn’t “working,” but I didn’t feel like I was resting well, either.
While eating a pomegranate (mostly out of boredom more than hunger), I decided to forget about any preconceived project and just create something that felt good and that let me express what I was currently feeling.
Once I finished, I felt a bit better and the creative floodgates opened back up.
Making shifts towards better rest take time.
Not only to do they take time, but paradoxically they also take a targeted amount of effort and energy. If we’re truly looking to be making shifts in our lives (of any kind, not just towards more rest) we’re going to have to navigate the reality that we’re going to fail and try again. Fail and try again. Fail and try again. We have to factor those ebbs and flows in and accomodate for them.
In other words, we have to fall in love with the process of moving towards what we love, not just focus on the outcome of what we believe that goal will give us.
One way to create and maintain momentum towards a new habit (perhaps better rest) you’re hoping to court is to create mini art offerings. Artistic expression of what we’re longing for, or actively moving towards creates a positive feedback loop1 in our heads while we are making the art, as well as creates a priming effect in our brains once the art piece is done2. In addition, if you’re creating something that feels good to make (rather than focusing on what it looks like as you’re making it), creating mini-art offerings to our desired habits also may have the byproduct of regulating our nervous system and helping our bodies, minds, and hearts, restore.
If You Need The Push To Create This Week—Here’s Your Sign
Grab out a piece of scrap paper and whatever crayons, markers, or paints are nearest to the room you’re in.
Set a ten minute timer so you don’t over think it.
Draw a shitty, quick sketch of the coffee mug in front of you, or break all your crayons in half and see if the texture of the blue crayon drags across the page differently than the yellow one. Ditch the brush and paint with your fingers, just to get curious about how thick or thin of lines you can make with using only your hands.
At the end, write “Sometimes, you just have to start again.” over the top of it all.
Put it somewhere in your house you’ll see it every day for the rest of the year.
If you feel like sharing—You know that I’d absolutely love to see what you create.
Please don’t hesitate to share.
Happy creating,
Dagny Rose
Support A Re-building Community Through Art
As y’all know—I was in Asheville, North Carolina during Hurricane Helene and helped with early stages of disaster relief. Although they’ve made huge strides much of the community is still in a deep process of healing and rebuilding.
One of my poems was selected to be published in a disaster relief zine titled Understory. This Western North Carolina local poetry publication through Loblolly Press along with almost 90 other artists. All proceeds will be going to a local relief group—BeLoved Asheville—and you’ll be supporting the art of artists impacted by Hurricane Helene.
If you have $10 to spare, please consider heading over to pick up a digital copy of Understory to support continuing efforts for disaster relief in WNC. Similarly, if you have any poetry/short story/visual art lovers in your life, please share and encourage them to do the same.
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, is all about—you guessed it—The Art!
Here we explore the creative practices in our lives. Whether we are creating for the pure joy of it, finding ways to have our art help make our lives better, or intentionally honing in on our creative practices, “The Art” is going to regularly touch into our creative pulse5.
Looking For A Place to Practice More Presence?
In August 2025 the Art of Rest is teaming up with Hughes River Expeditions6 to host our week-long, wellness river trip—Conscious in the Current. Spending a full week in a remote wilderness setting, with a gently-held, all-inclusive container is the perfect environment to practice gentle presence. If you’re interested to learn more and are interested in booking please don’t hesitate to reach out: dagnyrose@theartofrest.me.
Meaning that we’ll feel good about the act of creating something artistic related to whatever habit we’re working on and this will begin to become more incorporated into our value system or part of our identity. Our commitment to whatever our endeavor is is much more likely to become higher when it becomes value-based or part of our identity rather than a traditional “goal”
Meaning, if you put this art piece out somewhere that you will see it regularly after creating it, your brain will be reminded more often that you’re working towards something you care about. This will then remind you that this is a value or identity based goal