📝 Artist Dates
A habit to pick up in 2024
Art is an image-using system. In order to create, we draw from our inner well. (…) As artists we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them - to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well. — Julia Cameron
Auckland’s Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki, has been one of my favourite places here in Auckland to go on (solo) Artist Dates.
The gallery is such a beautiful and well-crafted piece of architecture: the restoration of the existing heritage building, the extension of the new adjacent museum access and rooms, the integration with Albert Park, and the Maori motifs carved in the canopies.
Perhaps this is also the reason why I enjoyed so much being in this place: the art inside is great, but the space that encapsulates it all is just exquisite. This is what defines great architecture: it seems that the building, the space, has always belonged there.
An Artist Date is a basic creative tool - explains Julia Cameron, who first wrote about this in her book The Artist’s Way. She writes:
The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic”– think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy.
Artist Dates - an expedition to explore - can be anything that brings you that joy and inspiration, anything that fires up the imagination: from walks in a park, visits to the museum or the library, wandering places in the city or nature...
When I recall my Artist Dates here in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, these are the places that come to mind:
Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki. I have personally deeply treasured my time here at Auckland’s Art Gallery, either sketching at the cafe on the top level whilst having a long black, wandering the galleries and discovering new art, spending time in the shop looking at the books, or sitting quietly in the member’s room reading Robin White’s book and sketching the trees outside.
Auckland’s Public Central Library has been another recurrent date. I loved wandering between the books, keeping an eye on the Art and Graphic Novels section to discover new volumes. It has been a quiet place to go and read and study.
Western Park, next to our apartment has become my ritual after lunch walk when working from home. A little piece of advice: find your park and know your trees, always!
The art supply store in Grey Lynn. I love getting lost in bookshops and art supply stores. This one close to our apartment became a place to go and discover new media, and get inspired and motivated by all the material around. It also had a small bookshop.
Reflecting on the places where I enjoyed my solo Artist Dates here in Auckland makes me realise what brings me pure joy: art, books, great architecture spaces, trees, and nature. Something to ponder on. A way of getting to know oneself better.
Instead of planning the Artist Dates, go to those places you love, and then notice what brought you that sense of joy and inspiration. Take also the above as suggestions for your own Artist Dates - these are places where you can do different activities if you visit them regularly, or rather, enjoy the rituals and routines of doing the same thing.
On my last Artist Date at the Gallery, I visited this fantastic exhibition: The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity, a collection of modern paintings by some renowned European artists. I was captivated by a marvellous Monet.
At the end of the exhibition, there were a couple of large curious photographs: they illustrated the residence where the two donors of the art displayed in the exhibition lived in New York. It struck me that the architecture and the furniture were classic, old-fashioned, but the paintings on the wall were radically modern, avant-garde. It was such an interesting duality of styles separated by about a hundred years.
It made me wonder: why does not Modern Art (100 years have passed now) feel classic yet?
Although my days in Auckland are coming to an end, the excitement lies now in the next chapter back in London, where I intend to pick up the habit of going on Artist Dates again every week.
What are your favourite Artist Dates? Would love to hear in the comments. 🙂
✏️✨
Happy sketching!
Ana
This is such a good habit! It is neither expensive nor time-intensive, but it is such a good investment in ourselves!
I feel sad that your stay in New Zealand is coming to an end because I've loved reading about your experiences there. Nevertheless, I will certainly welcome you back to England and look forward to hearing about your artists dates here when you get settled. Will it be a visit or a more permanent stay?