Today I was supposed to be wrapping up the Get Re-Inspired Creative Retreat. I planned to share my finished papier-mache pieces and sum up the lessons I learned over the course of the month.

But as this week approached, I realized I wasn’t finished with the retreat. So I’m giving it one more week.

It wasn’t just that my papier-mache wasn’t finished. It’s that I’m not ready to let go of this way of working. Of prioritizing play and curiosity. Of prioritizing my creative needs above all else.

In our society it’s so easy to get caught up in what you “should” be doing. If you’re an artist sharing your work online there’s pressure to appear productive. This pressure and these shoulds hold us back from experimenting and play. Experiments and play spark ideas, but they don’t always yield sharable “results”, at least not right away.

Last week the Skillshare Top Teachers had our quarterly Zoom meeting. In one of the breakout sessions, we chatted about what creative superpower each of us wished we had. I said I wished I could work fast which led to a conversation about how what many of us really want is more time.

I kept thinking about this. The desire for more time. I thought about it as I contemplated extending my retreat. I thought about it as I remembered why I wanted the retreat in the first place.

Back in November when I was celebrating 10 Years of Painting, I wrote a post about lessons I’ve learned on my creative journey. One of the lessons is what I call The Most Important Skill in my class Beyond Beginner: Tips and Tricks to Level Up Your Watercolors:

PATIENCE.

It’s something I have to learn again and again.

Patience with the learning curve.

Patience with the creative process.

Patience with my ups and downs, with creative ebbs and flows.

Patience with the seasons and with frustrations and sorrows beyond my control.

Patience with my own personal development and growth.

This month during the creative retreat, I learned patience once again.

I learned that the most important thing for my creativity, for my inspiration and for my art is making, claiming and fiercely protecting the time and space necessary to create.

Without time and space to prioritize creative exploration and play we only scratch the surface of what’s possible. Ideas need time and space to develop and grow. If we don’t give them the time and space they need (physical and metaphorical space), they’ll never come to fruition.

When we race from one thing to another. When we hurry to finish tasks. When our priorities are shifted away from slow, incremental growth and the deep work needed to bring it about to the hustle of productivity, of results and appearances, we become stunted. Our creativity becomes stunted. And we close ourselves off to possibilities.

I know I have more work to do with these ideas. I need more time and space. For me. For my creativity.

I’ll be writing in my journal and getting messy in my sketchbooks. I’ll be relishing the fact that I don’t work fast. I’ll be throwing aside the “shoulds” and fiercely guarding my creative exploration. And I’ll savor another week of creative retreat.

What about you? Are you giving yourself the time and space YOU need, too?