I haven’t been very motivated to do…anything…as of late. And I don’t think I blame myself for those feelings, or anyone else who is just trying to get out of bed in the morning while the world is falling apart/burning down/insert your own destructive verb here.
But I have done one thing that I think is helping me with my motivation to come, and that is:
Moving my art table.
People always talk about how a change of scenery either can help (because sometimes you need a fresh start), or doesn’t help at all (because wherever you go there you are). But I am of the former camp. I feel this way because I left Texas just over 3.5 years ago and moved to the northeast, and that massive change of scenery had a really positive impact on my life. Yes, wherever you go there you are, but sometimes your scenery is directly degrading your quality of life.
Anyway, back to the art table.
When we moved to our current rental back in October, I put my table where it had been at our last place – in my office. Except this office was way smaller, so I was almost bumping into it when I worked at my desk every day. And it was also sandwiched between the litter boxes and the wall, which meant that whenever I painted, I was not only staring at my work computer but I was also inhaling wisps of kitty litter.
No wonder I wasn’t feeling motivated to paint.
After pondering things over for a few weeks, I finally proclaimed to my husband that I’d like to move the table downstairs. I was pretty sure about the move by this time, and I had to be, because it’s a heavy table and there was no going back up the stairs with it. So on a Monday evening a few weeks ago, we each grabbed an end and headed toward the stairs.
“Ok hang on, let me prepare myself before we go.”
So we stood there, at the top of the stairs, waiting for Elizabeth to find her Herculean strength while she was also staring at her husband’s adequate biceps.
It helped that he went first, because he took on most of the weight. But as I mentioned, this is not a light table. I felt my muscles burning as we moved down, step by step, but there was no stopping because…it’s stairs. How do you put a rectangular table, with the metal legs wide apart, down on the stairs without also losing your balance and scratching up your landlord’s floor?
It took everything I had to not drop that table when we finally made it to the bottom, because I’d hit my max a few steps back.
“Phew. Ok give me a minute.”
Eventually we got going again and set the table down in its final destination – the living room. Now this rental is unlike all of our others in that it has a pretty large living room, and there was some unused space by the front windows. We’d capitalized on it last year for our Christmas tree, but otherwise there was nothing there except an air purifier and a small storage cube from Ikea that Jack sat on to look out the window.
After we got done with the table, I did several more trips to move the two chairs, the small lamp, and the tray of supplies that I’d kept on the table itself. I moved the Ikea cube to the small hallway by the half bath, and then I quit until another day. (Getting all of my remaining supplies out of the upstairs closet and moving them would require several more trips up and down, and 45-year-old me decided, “Nah, I’m good.”)
Fast forward to now, and I’ve got my art table right by the window and in the room where I relax at night. It’s not by my work computer anymore nor is it by the litter boxes, although Jack does leave his fur all over the chair since it’s his new favorite spot. It’s been great, too, because the setup has filled out the previously empty section of the living room while also making painting feel exciting and attractive again.
And that is step 1 when you’re lacking motivation: having some sort of spark, which at some point finally gets you going again.
I’ve only painted once in that time, and it felt very primitive because it’s been several months. But my one evening session was more than the zero sessions I’d had since I’d painted my dad a snowy forest in early December, and I know I’m now primed to paint some more.
So back to the whole change of scenery thing. Yes, I am firmly in the camp that sometimes you need to change your scenery when you’re feeling depressed, uninspired, stuck, unproductive. Sometimes that scenery is moving across the country, changing jobs, changing homes. But sometimes it’s just moving your furniture around.
It really can be that simple.