Art burnout is a central topic in anyone's practice, no matter what stage they’re at. It’s a force that is constantly apprehended, and the day we reach artistic burnout is one that no artist ever wants to meet, yet eventually we always do.
Steering clear of artistic burnout instantly becomes a top goal of the artistic pursuit and something we don’t wish upon even that one art teacher who told us our work was lacking.
I had this sensation much more often when I was younger, because now, through trial and error and life experience, I have a much better understanding of curbing this feeling and (if it does arise) how to quickly and violently eliminate it to exit out of the dreaded ‘burnout slump’.
Here's my top 5 methods of avoiding burnout:
Take time; it doesn’t all have to be done now.
Getting caught up in everything you have to do and everything you want to do can quickly force you into a burnout. As soon as you stop giving your brain the time to catch up, it conveniently begins to shut down, mocking us while doing it.
To combat this, I always consider making a list and then sorting this list out into a hierarchy of the tasks that I feel most readily to do and then the others on the opposite end of the spectrum. I will usually complete one of these ‘easy tasks’ and then start with the more difficult ones once I gain momentum.
If you are artistically curious, you might have multiple avenues that you want to approach within your practice. The thing about your being too smart for your own good brain in relation to your physical being is that you have two legs that can take you in one direction at a time. As soon as you try dotting about everywhere sporadicly, you set yourself up to become fatigued. This is a bolt to burnout. My solution to this is to dedicate specific days (or specific hours of the day) to work on one creative avenue and leave the others for another dedicated slot of time. This way, you don’t run a marathon at the pace of a sprint.
2. At the same time, don't just think; take action.
Not to be contradictory, but you need to be careful with everything I just said.
A balance has to be found with how much time you leave certain tasks or creative avenues alone. The unfortunate news is that this is a balance that doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all solution; instead, you must discover it by experiencing your practice through different ways of working. There’s a risk with the previous advice of taking time that you just become avoidant of taking action.
Again, this is something no one will be able to spell out for you. Just take the method of experimental trial and error when it comes to structuring your creative day, and eventually you will figure out what works for you (one can hope anyway).
I think this is something that will evolve as you grow. Don’t be afraid of creating additional methodologies after you have found the seeming ideal structure for the way you work.
3. Build a reference bank; a Pinterest board doesn’t count.
A Pinterest scroll can sometimes be a great catalyst for inspiring a particular project. However, your reference bank shouldn’t stop there. What do I mean by a reference bank? You need a personal curation of different life experiences, visual imagery, textures, poems, and exhibitions; you need as much as you can get. I dedicate days to just gaining reference material: going to exhibitions and jotting down my thoughts; immersing myself in nature; and creating rubbings of tree bark. Something to address is that you shouldn’t curate this reference bank so soon to only things you love. There should be things you’re not so keen on. I have always found the sources I find somewhat irrelevant at the time still draw in for a purpose and later on reveal themselves as the centre of my work. You should be open to shocking yourself.
4. Invest in art books; stop existing in the digital world so much.
This comes off the back of the previous point, but it’s crucial. It is common knowledge that we spend too much time in the digital world, yet so much artistic practice immerses itself in it. There’s so much noise when it comes to scrolling through our digital sources: we gain an influx of information in one go. Art books, kindly curate to as narrow a curation as you feel necessary. You can reference by century, by artist, by style, or by group. Having a physical source to flick through can be so much more enhancing for your practice as it gains permanence in your life rather than a closed tab as you become to know it more intimately.
(Magazines are great too if you’re looking for a broader capsule of work relevant to the time of publishing.)
5. Speak to your inner child.
Bullshit that we grow up. We grow to have more life experience, but this doesn’t mean rejecting the version of you that first decided to scribble aimlessly with a cheap crayon. Embracing childlike curiosity and playfulness in your work (especially the more explorative development work) will help you invent in a way that feels effortless. The pressure of creating is released, and the burnout humbly stays away. So don’t be afraid to pick up the cheaper supplies again or buy a silly sticker book; you will be surprised with what retracting unlocks for you to (ironically) propel you further.
Those are the five lessons I have found most crucial for my work and avoiding burnout, but they're only five of many. Try to include and manipulate them in a way that enhances your practice beautifully. Together, we can do our best to avoid burnout.
(p.s. I hope you can appreciate the graphics I'm trying out in these blog posts, they are the perfect excuse to practice my adobe skills which are still really fresh)
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