Artist’s dates are an idea from Julia Cameron, the woman who created a movement with her book, The Artist’s Way. I started working through her twelve-week course earlier this year. (I wrote about it and a few other things in February.) Cameron suggests solo artist’s dates weekly to refill the well we draw on when we create art–whether visual or verbal. She describes them as solo dates “to do something fun.”

While the idea of doing something fun is certainly a good one, I spend enough time on my own. I’ve been an “empty nester” and a widow for quite a few years now, so doing things by myself is my norm. Planning more time alone isn’t as much fun for me, especially when I’m trying to feed my inner artists.

This month, though, I had a chance to do a couple of group crafts, and I realized those are my perfect artist’s dates.

The first one was at our local writing group’s “Day Camp for Big Kids.” One of our newest members is a professional graphic artist and a crafter. She offered to lead us through a process that recycles junk mail into folios. She imagined they would be ideal for snippets of stories, inspirational pictures, character notes and anything else we might want to save for stories we’re working on. She also said we could take them to conferences or other gatherings to hold business cards and other small memorabilia we might pick up there.

Continue reading “A variation on artist’s dates” →