Grief and Creativity - Finding My Way Back

I fell into a period of creative hibernation after my brother Jim passed away suddenly in November. I was not expecting grief to take such a toll on my creative drive and ability. Art is supposed to help in times of crisis, no? But then why was I having so much trouble getting into my studio or even doodling in a sketchbook?

There is a wealth of literature about the benefits of art in helping people express and process grief. But about the opposite relationship — what grief does to creativity — there is surprisingly little.

It wasn’t until I was reading Joan Didion’s, The Year of Magical Thinking, that something clicked. In her account of the year following her husband’s death, Didion wrote: “Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.”

Grief is physically, emotionally, and mentally draining. Grief envelopes you. Grief swamps you. And sometimes the only thing you can do is just hold on. Processing grief, on the other hand, requires a proactive orientation. It demands exactly the kind of mental energy and attention that grief has stripped away.

I hadn’t quite realized how mentally drained I was until I read Didion’s words and felt the resonance of recognition.

The inability to think clearly and get things done has been called “grief brain” or “grief fog.” With an injection of adrenaline and little choice, one might be able to respond to the crisis of the day. But the mental resources required for the less dramatic work of organizing thoughts, starting something new, or making good decisions simply aren’t there.  They have been siphoned off by a mind that has gone into overdrive trying to make sense of the senseless.

Many of my extended family members have suffered from this kind of mental fatigue in the months since my brother’s death. They have found themselves at work staring blankly at the computer screen waiting for ideas to coalesce and for their brains to start doing something resembling productivity. For me, even simple things, like responding to email, were weights that seemed too heavy to lift.

In that context, I shouldn’t have been surprised that my creative thinking would also suffer. I did have some not-quite ideas about studio work and a vague desire to be flinging paint around. But when I started contemplating actually going to my studio, deciding what to do, setting things up, and doing whatever came next, I was exhausted even before I finished the thought.

Many artists think of their practice as a kind of therapy – it’s what keeps them sane, brings them joy, helps them make sense of a crazy world. It is that for me too and I can imagine that as grief turns to sorrow my art practice will be a big help. But in the shorter term, grief left me with precious little mental energy for creative endeavors.

Why did I care? Why have I fought to continue my art practice rather than putting it on indefinite hold until I feel creatively inclined? Although I couldn’t have put it into words before now, I think subconsciously I felt that abandoning my art practice would be yet another loss that I didn’t think I could bear.

Once I recognized that mental fatigue was part of the problem, I was able to start taking small steps to address it.

Mental fatigue and its cognitive underpinnings are things I’ve written and talked about. Although following my own advice isn’t always easy, I at least knew where to begin — and that was with reducing mental demands and finding ways to proactively restore my mental resources.

I did what I could to staunch the bleed of my mental energy. I stopped reading the news and cut down on social media. I said no to non-essential things that I knew would require more mental energy than I had — things that my inner voice said I should be doing and even some things that would have been fun in other circumstances.

I spent time on mental self-care and restoration. I started meditating. I read poetry. I went to the park for walks or just to sit. Nature has been such good medicine that I’ve recently ramped up my dose by going to the nearby Collserola woods four or so times a week for morning hikes with my husband.

Engaging with my art practice required some additional effort, and I started slowly and with few expectations. My first goal was just to regularly get myself into my new studio space. Like a skittish colt led to the paddock with a gently-held carrot, I coaxed myself to my studio with the promise of low-effort projects that had nothing to do with making art — a bookshelf to assemble, a box to unpack, collage papers to organize. I have taken comfort from puttering, cleaning, and organizing. The walk over and back has helped.

When it came to actually doing something art-related, I reframed my studio practice from one focused on working toward something to one focused on being in the moment. I have let go of any intention of making progress — in whatever elusive form that might take — and instead have simply been enjoying the suspended moment of the present.

I have found that doing things with concrete steps but that don’t require too much prep or decision making is calming and has further helped restore my mental and emotional energy. It is my own version of art therapy.

I tried collecting and sketching bits of nature that I found on my walk to the studio — leaves, seed pods, branches — but drawing was too familiar and my expectations made it feel like work. More helpful were things that I had little experience with and that were wonderfully out of my control.

I spent days pushing crushed charcoal over paper which occupied my mind with movement and tactile sensation while still allowing some mental space to daydream. I explored monoprinting with a gel printing plate — an imprecise art which relieved any pressure to “do it right.” I have spent a surprisingly large amount of time under the meditative spell of suminigashi (a Japanese method of taking monoprints from ink floated on water).

Whether it’s through my own efforts or just through the passage of time, I’m beginning to feel more excited and involved in my art practice. Wisps of ideas are slowly drifting in, propelled by a rising level of mental energy.

Maybe soon I’ll take stock of all the mark-filled papers that have been accumulating on my studio floor. Maybe soon I’ll finish unpacking boxes, get some window coverings, get a plant or two.

But for now I’m still moving slowly. I remind myself that I’m only just emerging from hibernation — blinking into the light of an impoverished world, but one with possibilities nevertheless.

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