Episode 19 : Burnout, Selling Art & Finding Your Direction

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Claudia, Sophie and Caroline, exploring burnout, artistic identity, selling artwork, creative validation and the challenge of moving beyond your comfort zone.

Claudia is recovering from severe burnout after a lifetime of pursuing challenge, achievement and new experiences. Recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD, she finally has the time, space and resources to dedicate herself to art. Yet instead of feeling liberated, she feels paralysed. Torn between botanical illustration, oil painting, printmaking and mokuhanga, she worries that choosing one path means abandoning all the others. We explore the difference between curiosity and achievement, why art doesn't have a finish line, and whether her real challenge might not be choosing a medium but learning how to stay with something after the novelty has worn off.

Sophie is a mixed-media artist and teacher from New York who dreams of making larger, more ambitious textile and mixed-media work. She has built a website and online shop but struggles to generate sales, dislikes markets and has consciously chosen not to use social media. As a result, she finds herself questioning whether she can justify investing more time, space and energy into her creative practice. We talk about the difference between an art practice and an art business, why sales aren't the same thing as validation, and how artists can build visibility without relying on social media.

Caroline has been steadily drawing flowers for several months and feels ready to move beyond simple studies. She'd love to create richer, more complex compositions, but every time she tries she feels overwhelmed and doesn't know where to begin. We discuss how to create a simple still-life setup that can act as a stage for her drawings, allowing confidence and complexity to grow naturally over time.

Also in this episode, I answer a quick listener question from Katharina about painting churches, landmarks and tourist attractions, and whether artists are allowed to sell postcards and artwork based on those locations.

In this episode, I explore:

• The difference between achievement and curiosity in a creative practice
• Why some artists struggle when there is no clear finish line or measure of success
• How burnout can affect the way we approach creativity
• The relationship between novelty, mastery and artistic growth
• Why sales should not be the sole source of creative validation
• The difference between an art practice and an art business
• Alternative ways to build visibility without relying on social media
• How to move from simple studies to more complex compositions
• The value of creating a familiar framework for your drawings
• Why artists often worry about invisible rules that don't really exist

Each dilemma is explored with both emotional insight and practical steps you can try in your own creative life.

If you have a creative dilemma you'd like me to explore, please email me at:

thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com

If you're feeling stuck in your own creative practice and would like support, you can find out more about my creative coaching, workshops and artwork at:

www.sammarshallart.com

You can also find me on Instagram at @sammarshallart.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Creative Couch. I'm some martial artist and creative coach. This is a podcast for anyone navigating the ups and downs of a creative life. Each week I respond to three real creative dilemmas sent in by listeners, exploring both the emotional side of what you're experiencing and some practical ways to move forward. And from time to time, I'll also be joined by other artists to talk about their creative life, their practice, their challenges, and what keeps them going. Good afternoon, and welcome to the creative couch. Welcome back. So I'm in a different space today. This is my studio there where I do all my printmaking. And uh I'm in here because it's cooler and it's because he's got a little aircon uh system at the back here. So I use that in the winter to keep me warm, and I use it in the summer to keep me cool. And it's really warm here today in the UK, so hence me recording in here uh on my little computer. Uh, because otherwise otherwise I'm gonna roast. I'll be roasting in the yellow studio. Um, anyway, welcome back, everybody. Thank you for all your lovely messages this past week on the podcast. It's just so heartening to hear how much you're all enjoying it, which brings me to the next point. I need your dilemmas, guys. It's a call, whatever that is. Uh I need it's a foghorn call. Do you use foghorn foghorns too? No, anyway, you know what? I'm going off track. Uh, I need your dilemmas. I've got uh two for next week. I need some more. I need some more. So we're we're the barrel is running low. I'm really not good with any of these analogies, am I? Anyway, yeah, it it's uh it's looking uh pretty low in my inbox at the moment. So please do send your creative dilemmas in to the creative couch pod at gmail.com. I'm getting loads of lovely messages from everybody saying, Oh, I'm really enjoying it. And that's wonderful. Send me messages saying you're enjoying it. Also send me messages about what you're struggling with because I'm here to help. So, how I'm doing it at the moment is I spend my Saturday evenings going over the three dilemmas of the week, and then I make my notes and then I type them up and then I print them out and I read them. So, and it's really nice. It's a really nice Saturday routine. I've got going, I kind of do some work and then I sit on the sofa, I look through the dilemmas, I make some notes. Just a really nice, gentle way of doing it. Um, so that's how it's all working at the moment. Anyway, uh Marple's underneath here. So she's actually with me, she's here, so she might peek, might might uh might raise her, raise her head um at some point during this next 30 minutes or so. Anyway, so loving lately. So, what have I been loving lately? As you might already know, if you know me well, and many of you do from years of following me, I am a voracious reader, and especially audiobooks, because I listen to audiobooks all the time when I'm on my runs, when I'm making work, when I'm, I don't know, it in the car. I've just always got an audiobook on the go. And last week I finished one called All In by Claire Powell. Um, and I just loved it. I just absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed one of Claire's books a couple of years ago called At At the Table, or yeah, At the Table, I think it was called. And what I love about her work, she's an English um writer, and I just love her observations of family life. I think she's got such a sort of dry wit about her and such a great way of describing dynamics within groups. So this is um set over a weekend. It's uh about a brother and um and his brother and his wife, and they all go on holiday. And it's just really just how that week that weekend unfolds. It's very, very interesting. It's a bit like I don't know, there's parallels to that new TV programme that's come out with oh, what's it called? Two weeks in August or two weeks something or other on BBC. It's got parallels to that. I mean, it's not as dark as that one, but it's just great. I really enjoyed it. If you're into audiobooks and you like character-driven novels, then I think you'll enjoy this. That's kind of my bag. I'm I'm much more interested in characters than I am in plot, you know. I'm not a plot heavy person. Anyway, that's my recommendation. So uh if you're on Audible and you fancy a I don't know, I just a gentle kind of read, then maybe use your credit on that. Okay, right, back today, today's podcast. I could talk about audiobooks or I'm listening to a great one at the moment about Sylvia Plath. I'll recommend that one in another couple of weeks. Anyway, right, let's move on. So today I am answering Claudia's dilemma, Sophie's dilemma, and Caroline's dilemma. This is Caroline's second appearance on the pod. She did write in and said, I think I'm being a bit cheeky, but do you mind answering this? I don't at all. I'm I'm I'm all up for any any dilemmas. Some dilemmas I get in that are really, really short and actually are easier for me just to email you back. So I got one in from uh Katharina, who lives in Germany, and I emailed her back last night because it didn't have enough uh in it for me to make a whole sort of section out of it. So, you know, sometimes if you send in a dilemma a bit like, you know, how do I sharpen my lino cut tools, then I'll either I'll email you back. Anyway, right, let's get on with it. Claudia. So Claudia uh is 47 and she is recovering from severe burnout after decades of throwing herself wholeheartedly into her work. So I don't know what Claudia did with her work or does with her work. She didn't specify that. However, it sounds like she's been working very hard for a long time. She says throughout her life, she's been driven by challenge, novelty, and achievement, often moving between careers and even countries in search of the next thing to learn or master. Last year, after her mental health deteriorated significantly, she stepped away from work and was later diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, a diagnosis that says has helped her, uh has helped many parts of her life suddenly make sense. And for years, she writes that art has sat quietly in the background as something she loved but never had enough time to pursue seriously. And now for the first time, she has what she always thought she wanted time, space, materials, and freedom. She's studying botanical illustration and has recently fallen in love with mukahanga, which is the um Japanese printmaking technique, wood wood block technique that I did a few years ago. She enjoys oil painting and printmaking and has more creative possibilities available to her than ever before. But instead of feeling liberated, she feels paralyzed. She writes that in chain, in instead of choosing one, the idea of choosing one direction fills her with anxiety because it feels as though she's abandoning all the others. She worries that finding her own artistic voice requires years of commitment to a single medium, yet every choice feels loaded with significance. At the same time, she's spending more time looking at art than making it, collecting hundreds of inspirational images and admiring the work of artists she loves while struggling to move forward with projects of her own. So I think that Claudia's question is this how do you move forward creatively when everything interests you, every choice feels important, and the freedom you've always wanted somehow has become another source of pressure, which is what I'm going to dig into. Now, on the surface, this sounds like a couple of other dilemmas I've answered, I've answered in the past, you know, all the materials, all the excitement, not knowing where to focus. However, I think this one's different because I don't think this is a dilemma about having too many ideas, because those dilemmas normally come from a place of excitement. However, I think with Claudia, what's happening is that they're coming from a place of pressure. Because one sentence really stuck out to me, and that was she wrote, Whenever I feel I've figured out how something works and achieved the level of success I was aiming for, I tend to move on. And the more I sat with that sentence, the more I thought that that is the heart of the dilemma. In that Claudia writes that she's always been an overachiever, and that actually that has become a pattern in her life. You know, she's entered periods where she's entered, you know, different stages in her life, new fields, she's learned quickly, she's become competent, she's achieved what she wanted to achieve, and then she's moved on to the next challenge, challenge. And it sounds to me as if Claudia has become rewarded by being a fast learner for mastering things, from you know, getting the boxes ticked off, um, getting high marks, achieving what she wants to achieve. And there's nothing wrong with that. But the problem is, is art doesn't really work that way. You know, you can't complete it, you can't necessarily master it. There's always new things to learn. You can't figure it out and then move on because the challenge just keeps on moving. And I wonder whether, for the first time in your life, Claudia, you've encountered something that perhaps doesn't have a finish line. You know, there's no promotion, there's no obvious point where somebody says, right, congratulations, you've achieved that. There's your gold star and your hat, and you can move on. And I wonder whether that's what's causing a lot of pressure, because now you've finally got the time and the freedom that you've wanted. But I feel that perhaps you're still approaching this creativity with the same language you've used in your working life. Because when you talked about your creative life in your email, it was still peppered with these terms like challenge, achievement, success, finding your voice, moving forward, and you know, committing to a path. And they're not bad words, but they're still all achievement focused. And I wonder whether you've turned your creativity into the next mountain that you're trying to climb, the next thing that you're trying to get right, uh, the next thing you're trying to solve, the next thing that you're trying to master and then move on. And I think I mean one of the things that also struck me about your artwork is that you said it was a really light point in the email when you said looking at art makes me feel really happy. But I got the sense that making the art makes you feel anxious, and that I think is where we need to what we need to look at. Um, because I think that it's almost become a bit of a performance. You're evaluating yourself, you're you're you're kind of turning it all into uh uh you know this other thing that you need to get marked on to tick off and to achieve. And and I think I think really w when you talked about which, you know, which medium should I choose, I almost think that you're asking, you know, uh can I stay with something after the novelty is worn off? Because that's going to be your challenge. And I think that's partly what's happening is that you know your tendency to do something, to lose interest and then move on. And it's almost like you're frightened of actually reaching that stage, and actually that stage will, I mean, especially with art, you just have to stick with it, really. I think if you want your work to have to kind of get the depth that you're probably craving. Um you know, it's not at the exciting point, it's where things get sticky and things get challenging, and you don't know where to turn, and you make a piece of work that doesn't work out, and you have to leave it and you have to come back to it rather than you know going on to the next thing. So I I think what's let me just I think what did I try to think? I think what's you're you're you're learning the basics, you're you're learning the basics, and you're then knowing your pattern, and then I feel I feel like you're almost freezing. I feel like you're almost freezing. And I I I think that a lot of people would move at that point, but artists often will stay. You know, I think people who flip-flop around, and we've had this term before, flip-flopping around from one medium to another. You know, I think that really to understand a technique, to understand a way of working, you have to sit with it and you have to go through those difficult bits, even if you're not getting the the ticks and the awards and uh congratulations, you've made it. You know, you you have to be the person who sets your own goals and you with a bit with with your with your art, you have to be the person who, you know, sets your own kind of agenda with it. And I think what's what's frightening you here is that you almost feel like you do need to choose one thing, and that one thing will be forever. And I don't think that's really a healthy way for you at the moment to approach it. Um, because I think you're sort of you're you're you're you're asking the question, you know, do I need to choose between botanical illustration, muk hangar, oil painting, and printmaking, as if one of those will form your identity permanently. Um, because I think and I I think no wonder you're struggling. I think what you need to look at it is uh I think what would be better for you to to consider is what would I most enjoy exploring over the next three months? And that's a much gentler question, isn't it? It's a much gentler question because nothing's being lost, nothing's being abandoned. You are just simply choosing where your attention will be placed for a certain time. And I think what I would be really curious about here for you, Claudia, is uh when your attention starts to wane and when the initial excitement fades. Because I suspect that's been the turning point in a lot of your life. The novelty disappears, you know, competence arrives, and then you're like, right, okay, job done, off I go. And I think that is where the learning for you is going to be, is in that space where you want to jump ship and you want to go on to something else. And actually, that's where I think you need to stay. And I think that you don't need to stay there forever, but I think you need to stay there longer than what you feel comfortable. You know, stay after the first successful print, stay after you've learned the basics, stay after you've figured how the process works. I think that is where the important discoveries are waiting, and I think that's where you're going to reach a turning point. And I would at the at this point, I would put the whole idea of style on the shelf. Most artists don't find their style by searching for it, they uh they find their style from just turning up, making the work, and then their personality starts to seep into the work, and that takes time. So I think you you you know, you've just got to approach it with awareness that you are operating in the same way that you perhaps used to operate with your previous work, and that actually this new phase of your life requires a different approach. A different approach. And I would, and this is some your homework, some of your homework is this. Um, I would like you to be aware. What did I say here? Yeah. Okay, so one of the things that I like I said, I noticed about your email that it was peppered with these achievement goal-oriented words, and so I would like you to be aware of every time you start thinking about success, achievement, mastery, or you know, goal-oriented words, and kind of just be aware of them, maybe write them down because what I think would be interesting is for you to ask yourself, you know, what would happen if my goal wasn't achievement? What would happen? You know, if if my goal wasn't achievement, what would happen with my work if the goal wasn't achievement? I think that you'll have some answers there. And I think you might feel a bit untethered. And I think that's a that's an important part of being an artist. We do all feel untethered. It's not like a normal job, you know, where we get we have a job evaluation and we get a pay rise. It's not like that. So I think we you need to be aware of the terminology and the and the way that you're talking to yourself about your work, and also thinking about ways to replace that language. So that's one part of the homework. Be aware of the words that you're using in your everyday life to describe this period of time that you're going through. Have a look at your email again that you wrote to me, and I think you'll understand what I mean. So for the next three months, and this is this is something I have said to people in the past who've written in with this whole idea of being overwhelmed. But I do think it's important for you is that you for the next three months or more, you stick with one technique or area that genuinely interests you, and you sit through that part where you want to jump ship, where you feel it sounds like you're a quick learner, you'll probably learn things really quickly, but I want you to sit with that and keep going with it. Okay, so you keep going with it. And I think it's also important that you choose the one, not that you think you should choose, but that you genuinely want to choose. I mean, botanical illustration is very, very different to mukahanga. You know, they're very different approaches. So I would be really asking yourself, which one of these do I really want to spend my time doing? Be really honest with yourself. You know, I personally wouldn't want to spend my time doing botanical illustration because it's not something that interests me. So therefore, and I know that about myself, I I think there possibly needs to be, you know, more questioning going on and more evaluation as to, you know, which of these techniques is really working for you and which techniques are you really enjoying. Right. Um so stick with something, stick, stick with the uncomfortable bit. And then also I wanted to talk about the fact that you keep saying you sorry, not you keep saying that you said that you spend a lot of time researching artists, looking at artists, looking for inspiration and not actually making the work. So I would be really conscious of monitoring that as well. You know, every time you find yourself scrolling, saving people's work, you know, uh farting around on Instagram, think to yourself, I could be making some work here, I could be doing a quick drawing. Drawing is also, you know, I'll always bang on about how important drawing is and how easy drawing is. You could have a small sketchbook in every single room. And instead of scrolling on your phone looking for artists' inspiration, trust that you have the inspiration within yourself to inspire yourself, if that makes sense. Anyway, Claudia, I hope that helped. And thank you so much for sending in such a really fascinating um and very complex um dilemma. Moving on from one complex dilemma to another complex dilemma. So this is Sophie. So Sophie writes that she is a mixed media artist from New York who comes from a long line of creative people. Her grandmother was a metal sculptor, her grandfather a woodcarver, her mother was a college artist, collage artist, sorry, college artist, collage artist, and Sophie feels like she's inherited a little bit of everything. Over time, she has tried to simplify her practice by focusing on materials she genuinely enjoys working with and reducing the overwhelm of too many supplies and processes. Alongside her creative practice, Sophie works as a teacher, so she isn't relying on her artwork as her primary source of income. However, she's taken she has taken her art seriously enough to establish a formal business, build a website, and create an online shop, all of which, she writes, took a tremendous amount of time and effort. However, she's recently found herself longing to make more ambitious and larger work. She feels drawn to make bigger textile pieces and mixed media projects, but her current workspace feels too restrictive and she struggles to justify investing in a larger, larger studio or dedicating more resources to her art. So part of the uh reason is financial. Um and she writes that despite creating this professional website and shop, she's made very little sales and feels and receives very little traffic. She dislikes selling at markets and finds them soul destroying, and she's consciously chosen not to use social media aside from maintaining a small YouTube channel. So as a result, she feels trapped in a cycle. She would like her artwork to generate enough income to help her fund a better workspace, but without sales. She finds it difficult to justify investing further in her practice. At the same time, she wonders whether there is even a market for the kind of work she makes. And she even asked me that, you know, she asked me directly, is there a kind, is there a market for the kind of work I make? Which then, you know, I uh I looked at Sophie's website and had a look at what she's offering. And I'll give you some thoughts on that in a bit. So I guess her question really is, how do you keep moving forward as an artist when your work isn't selling, your audience is small, um, and you're struggling to justify taking up more space, making bigger work and investing more deeply in your creative practice. And also with uh, you know, but making that decision to step away from Instagram or any kind of social media platforms, you know, how do you then get people over to your website? So when I first read Sophie's question, I thought, oh, it's a marketing question. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that I think it's a permission question, really. I think Sophie is really asking, you know, how can I validate making art or larger pieces of art when I'm not making any money from it? And I think that's a really honest question, isn't it? You know, you're making this work, takes up a lot of space. It it sounds like, you know, if you wanted to make the work you wanted to make, you want to make, you might need to get a larger studio. And all of those things are, you know, big questions because what are you going to do with the work if you make the work? Um, you know, it's it's that whole question, am I allowed to keep investing in this if it isn't paying me back? And I think we, as artists, we all quietly wrestle with that. Um, we sort of start to believe that sales are proof of our worth and proof of our um validity as an artist, proof that we're talented enough, you know. Um, and I don't think that sales should carry that burden and can carry that burden because if they are your only source of validation, you're always going to be chasing the next one, the next sale, you know, the next exhibition, the next smart, the next milestone to feel that you are, you know, moving forward and that work the work that you're making is is is worthwhile. And I think as artists, we need to make the decision early early on whether our work is worth making, but long before the financial situation is evident, you know, the financial rewards are evident. You are a teacher, you it sounds to me as if you have an income. So there isn't that pressure on you to be necessarily creating work that will help pay your mortgage, which I think is a really strong place to be. And I think that perhaps the the pressure on your artwork to justify its existence has become bigger than what it needs to be. And I will always say this your art doesn't need to it, your art doesn't need to earn the right to exist. It doesn't, it doesn't have to prove itself until you're allowed to make it. Um sorry, I you it doesn't have to prove itself before you're allowed to to make more of it, I should have said. Um and what I'm sort of noticing is when I read your email, when you talked about the work that you were selling, that seemed factual, but when you talked about the work you want to make, you became really, you know, I could sense there was a shift in the email, the energy changed in your email. Um and I think that maybe perhaps you've you might be making work with the idea of selling it. And I think what happens then is that the work becomes not about you, but it becomes about the potential buyer. You know, who is this person that's going to buy my work? How can I make work for this imaginary person? You know, how can I please this imaginary person? And I think that can be really, really limiting in many senses. Um, but when your email becomes a lot quite alive when you talk about your larger artwork, I think that's a bit of tension there. I think there's a there's I felt a little bit of tension there. So let's look at the practical layer. I had a look at your website, and when I looked at the work that you are showing on your website, my first thought wasn't there's no market for this. I did think there is a market for this. You know, there's people who are absolutely up out there to buy mixed media art, kind of artist books, sustainable craft, you know, these mixed media pieces that you're um that you're making, these bags, these, you know, these lovely notebooks, all of that kind of stuff. There is a market in there. The fact is that your mu your work isn't unsellable, but the problem is visibility. The visibility. You've got this shop. It's a bit like opening a um it's a bit like opening a small shop. Sorry, I thought oh yeah, could you just pop that down there for me? Is it Holy Tree cotton? Yes, that's right. Sorry. It took me all the way down there. Did it? Yeah, it took me to that number 17. It's attached it to a different parcel. Oh, okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Very curious what's in there. Got no idea. Anyway, we'll we'll continue on with the podcast. I'm not gonna cut these bits out. This is this is life here at Ollie Tree Cottage. I'm getting a mystery parcel. Got no idea what that is. Anyway, where I'm where am I where am I thinking? What was I thinking? Right, okay. I was saying with your shop, it's a bit like opening a shop down a small street, down a small road in the middle of nowhere, without any signs, and expecting people to find it. That's how it feels a little bit here, with your insistence that you're not going to do any social media and you're not going to do any markets. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. However, you do need to tell people where to find your shop. That is without a question or a doubt. There's there's no point having a shop online without being able to say, this is where you find the work. Okay, so that is where things need, you do need to look at that if you are wanting to make a few more sales. Um your website is asked is being asked to do all the heavy lifting, and and the thing hasn't, it hasn't got any support. It hasn't got any support here. So I think you do need to have a have a look at where you are going to direct people from. So that could be. It doesn't have to be Instagram, it doesn't have to be market, but it could be, you know, small local community fairs or something like that, where it's not like a big market, but it's something a little bit more intimate. It could be, you know, doing uh a little sort of pop-up in your house or something which is it feels a little bit more comfortable. It could be, you know, it could be something like building, you know, you said you've got a small YouTube channel. It could be a little bit more about spending a little bit more time with your YouTube channel, it could be open studios, it you know, it could be uh submitting your work to galleries, you know, it doesn't have to be social media, but there does have to be some way that people can see your work and then be told to go to your website. And I also I wanted to sort of say to you, you know, have a look at your shop and have a look at it whether whether it reflects the work that you truly want to be making, because I can absolutely see a common thread running through it. There's um, you know, there's the vintage textiles, there's the the the um the the colour, the texture, the handmade objects. But also I I I also in your email, I just heard this desire to be making the larger works. And I and I so I think really what what needs the what you need to be looking at here is I absolutely think that your your work has a place, it has it has the potential to make more money for you if that's what you want, but you do have to look at how you market yourself, simple as that. And then you you know, really look at the work that you want to make, look at the larger works that you want to make, you know, even if you don't have enough space for that at the moment, could the work be not necessarily larger, but could it be more ambitious? Could it could it have something of your ideas around the larger work, but maybe could it could it be explored more with a different approach rather than making it larger? Okay, so your homework. I've asked you some, I'm gonna ask you some direct questions here. So the first one I wrote down was if if money was completely removed from the equation, what what work would you make? That's the first one because I'll keep coming back to this whole thing. I mean, in your email, there's this idea that I feel there's this idea that you're making work that you think could sell, because I do think you want to make different work, which might not sell. But even the work that you're making at the moment to sell isn't selling. So I think again, that's something that I want you to be thinking about. What work would you make if money wasn't an option? And and not even, and let's just say you've got all the space in the world. Let's just say you've got a really bladed studio. You know, what work would you make? Okay. Do you want an art practice or an art business? So, again, sort of what I'm touching on here, what I've been touching on, this whole idea around making work that sells or making work for yourself. And I'm not saying either one is better than another, but they require different energy and different approaches. You know, an art practice can exist entirely for your own fulfillment, but an art business does require visibility, marketing, and building an audience. And I think it's important that you start being honest about what it is that you're aiming for. I think having clarity on that will help you make decisions in the, you know, um, in the future. And the question three is uh it's not really a question, it's a um it's a suggestion. Uh but I think you do need to look at how you want people to find your work. So choose one, you know, whether it's spending more time on YouTube, entering more exhibitions, uh doing an open studio, I do think you need to uh uh be a bit more persistent with that. And also I would like to gently ask you about why you've chosen not to use social media. Now I'm saying there's nothing wrong with that, but maybe revisiting that again, revisiting what is, you know, what's your hesitation around building about using social media, what what beliefs do you have around it? And you know, allowing yourself to accept that actually then that might change. You might now realize that you feel a little bit differently about social media. I think it's important that we we sometimes we make these statements. I'm not doing this, and we think that these statements are going to remain unchanged for years. And actually, we visit revisit them and we think actually, I feel differently about that now. So maybe it could be that you decide that you actually you would like to take up some sort of form of social media. Right. Thank you for that. Very interesting question, Sophie. Best of luck with everything. Best of luck. Hope you find a way to make that work for you. Okay, so the last one from Caroline, it's a it's a it's a really light question. It's quite light, it's quite easy to answer. Um, because I knew those two were quite meaty, and I was also going to answer, I was gonna answer one, another one, but it's too complex. I'm gonna leave that for next week. So we're looking at Caroline's question. So Caroline says she's been steadily drawing flowers for the past few months and is pleased with the progress she's made. Most of her drawings focus on individual flower stems against the blank background, and she's become she's become quite comfortable working that way. But the problem is she's beginning to feel stuck. She would love to create more interesting and complex complex drawings, perhaps some flowers in a vase or arrangements with more complex complexity and atmosphere. But every time she feels that she wants to, sorry, every time she thinks about moving beyond a single stem, she becomes overwhelmed and doesn't know where to begin. So, how can you move from simple studies into more complete drawings without complete without feeling completely over your out of your depth? Okay, so one thing I really want to acknowledge here is that you've reached a point whereby you are at the edge of your comfort zone here, Sophie or Sophie Caroline. Um, you know, when you first started drawing flowers, that was enough of a challenge, but you've been, you know, doing that, you've been learning about proportion and line and shape, and you've got more confidence. So with that, then comes right, okay. I feel like I understand that. I feel like I've spent enough time with that. Right, now let's move on. And that's where you're coming a little bit unstuck. Um, and I think that's often what happens here is that rather than going step by step, it's it I've heard people say to me, right, so I've done these drawings of flowers, I now want to go and do a large oil painting. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a that's a bit too much. That's you know, going from that to that is a bit too much. So let's let's break it down, let's start slowly with this and move slowly rather than you know producing a large uh oil canvas um from your um small um studies of of flowers. Let's not make too big a jump. So practically, what I think would be really helpful for you here, um Caroline, is setting up a space. So when I read your email, I can almost see the drawings that you're making, you know, just single stems floating, a bit like botanical illustrations. And what I think we need here is context. So I would like you to be thinking about creating a stage, creating a place whereby you can place things, you can leave them, and you can treat it almost like a uh a working area. So within that space, and the space can be really simple. All it needs is a wall and a table. So there you've got two different, you know, two different uh things to sort of bounce against. You can then start to see where the vase is with the flower, it's against the wall, it's on the table. So you can start to build a scene. And that is really, really simple, and that is often enough to start with because you've got to be able to understand, you know, where the line of the table uh intersects with what it is in front of you. So, first of all, I would say choose a space, find somewhere that you feel comfortable and that you can that you can claim as your own. And then I would say just collect a small sample of um things around your house, you know, like a simple vase, a small jug, a favorite mug, um, a few objects. And that's all you need, okay, for this for a start. Um and you start slowly. So for the first week, it could be a couple of tulips in a vase in the space. So you're not only are you drawing the flowers, you're drawing the vase, and you're drawing a very simple space around it. So just start with that. And then the next week it might be that you choose to do, you know, some sweet peas in the vase with the background. So you're just gently kind of stepping one step further every week. You could, you know, change it, change what's on the table. You might have a you might want to change it a cloth, you might want to put something behind on the wall so that you've got something different in the space on the wall. So just make these small changes slowly. That's what I would say to you. Um, but keep the framework, keep the setup. Look at Mirandi's work. I'll always talk about Mirandi. Look at how Giorgio Mirandi, look at how he used the same objects, the same vases, the same jugs throughout his life. And he did the most amazing paintings and etchings from these very, very simple set of shapes and of uh, you know, shapes of vases and jugs and stuff. So I think just let's just go step by step. And again, when you're drawing, making sure that you're thinking about the corners of your sketchbook or whatever the paper, thinking about composition. But I think this is the next stage, is that you'll you've been looking here, you know, you need to start looking a bit wider. Those of you who just sitting on audio, I'm kind of, you know, I'm I'm using my hands and looking very closely at my hands. So she's been looking, you know, observing very closely, but now we like to see where the flowers exist, you know, how the flowers exist in a space. So your homework is to set up a really simple still life arrangement somewhere in your house, you know, a table, a wall, a vase, and leave it there and just don't dismantle it after one drawing. You know, mark it as your territory. This is your space, this is your stage whereby you're placing these little actors every week. Um, and just experiment with different arrangements and just keep going. But I would really say just keep that setup and just keep coming back to it. There's there's something so lovely about knowing what you're doing. You know, for me at the moment, I'm working on a series of new um little etchings and lino cuts. And um, there are these weird little creatures that I've been drawing. And for me, knowing what I'm gonna do whenever I walk into my studio at the moment is great. There's a lot of stuff going on in my life behind the scenes at the moment, which you know, I'm I'm struggling with. Um, one of my friends is very poorly in hospital, and and my my attention, my mind is elsewhere a lot of the time. So I don't want to have to be coming into the studio thinking, right, what am I going to get on with today? I know what I'm getting on with because it's already set up here. So I think that's uh, you know, having something set up like a still life and having, you know, knowing what you're doing can actually be really, really helpful when you are, yeah, when you're kind of trying to progress further, or or when you're going through a difficult time, you know, having something really simple, having something we I call them quick winds for me at the moment, quick, quick winds. I can't reinvent things at the moment, I can't do massive ambitious projects. But what I can do is just something really small and simple, and I know what I'm doing when I walk into the studio. Right. I so I think the thing is you're not just drawing flowers now, you're going to be drawing drawing flowers somewhere. That's that's the challenge. That's the challenge. Right. I I hope that was helpful. I hope that you guys um got something from those three dilemmas. Been going for quite a long time. I'm very curious about what's in this box. Oh, I know exactly what's in this box. I know exactly what's in this box. I bought myself a sculpture, not a sculpture, a ceramic piece from Bircham Gallery in Holt in Norfolk by the wonderful artist Russell Wilson. I bought one of his lions. I'll have to show you them next week. That's exactly what it is. And it's already here. So I bought it yesterday. I'm collect I'm collecting them. They're beautiful. That's going to be my loving late you next week. I'll show you those. All right, my lovelies. Listen, we are sending love. Come on, Mark, we'll do a do a little appearance at the end. So, as always, if you're enjoying the podcast, please do tell your friends about it. She's been rolling it. Oh, it's the matcha cake. She's got been making a cake. And um, I tried to see whether she likes the the the what is it called? The uh paste, not the paste, the batter. She didn't like it. So she's got green matcha powder on her. Anyway, listen, we're sending love. Um, I've got somebody else here. It's all going on. It's all going on. All right, okay, thank you. It's not normally like this on a Sunday. Um, right, I'm going. I'm sending love. Send your send your podcast dilemmas into the creative catchpod at gmail.com. If you like the podcast, love, like, send lots of people my way, and let's keep this podcast going. All right, lovelies. Listen, I'll see you next week. Oh goodness, stop recording.