“Discipline and concentration are a matter of being interested.” – Tom Kite « Rebekah West's – 100 Everyday solutions to creativity obstacles. For artists to claim their excellence and humanity.

SOUTH MOLE, FREO, Australia – 79/100

Obstacle – Monotony

Your art wants to say something. How do you get there? Try one of these roadways in.

What do you value? Say you have an amazing voice but you see cooking as an act of love. Sing to food, about food, for food. Focus, concentrate, hold that determination. What surprises you?
What can’t you say? Maybe because your topic humbles you. Say to yourself everything that you wouldn’t say out loud to someone else. Exhaust the big idea. What’s left when you toss most of it out?
Notice what you are repeating. Repeat it 25 times and then throw in a wrench.
What dominates your work? Lean into it, give it full weight, full power, gigantic lead boots. Let it become the Big Momma. Let everything else shrink in its presence.
If your work could throw a temper tantrum, what would it demand? Be Grandma and Grandpa. Indulge the demand and see what happens.
So, I ask you very officially: What kind of artist are you? Answer it, then do exactly the opposite of that for the next 30 minutes. If you say, I’m a musician, work only with silence. Writer? No language. New media social artist. Be selfish and use analog.
Hocket. Counterpoint. Look, feel, hear, notice the rhythm of what you’re working on. Make a counter rhythm that fits in the spaces without flatlining the piece. Make another one that rides against it.
Go for the heart. In bullfighting, the matador mesmerizes the bull to bow its head to expose its heart to the blade. Gory metaphor, but just a metaphor. One stroke or they’ll boo you out of the arena for being heartless.