For the past year or so, I've felt like I've been living in a creative vacuum. I've moved around a lot; this time last year I was living in London, yet since then I've moved to two different houses in Norwich, one in Beijing and then back again to my parents' in Norfolk. I did used to think that the frenetic energy that moving around seems to conjure up could only be good for the creative process, yet I've singularly failed to produce a single piece I'm satisfied with over the past twelve months or more.
I guess there are practical reasons as to why moving around might be bad for productivity. Painting or creating generally requires a reasonable amount of paraphernalia: canvases, paint, etc. but also of course an environment where one has the space to move around and feel comfortable chewing through ideas in. I suppose this is why the artist is so often anchored to his/her studio; making forays far and wide to aid research, but always pinging back to the space they've grown to feel comfortable in.
All of this said, moving around a lot does give you the opportunity to hone your thinking processes, and when I approach working creatively now, I think I've benefited both from not having practised much over the last year, but also having a backlog of ideas and creative solutions to experiment with. Whether I'd still have a fairly positive attitude towards my creative practice had I decided to stay put for a year... I can't say.
All I can say is that I'm looking forward to bashing out some bloody, gory canvasses over the next few months.
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