25 Artist Date Ideas
...and my favorite one
Have you heard of Artist’s Dates? If you have, skip the next paragraph and go straight to the bright idea I wanted to share today for how to have one.
Artist Dates are a term coined by Julia Cameron in her excellent book The Artist’s Way. It has a great multi-week program for if you’re in writer’s block, or if you just want to empower yourself to believe more in your own creativity (I’m looking at you, ALL WOMEN).
Artist Dates are when you make time and space to go—alone—and PLAY with your creativity rather than taking it to work, aided by rich, indulgent sensory stimulation of every variety.
Now, do I love the idea of this? GODS YES. What overworked, overcommitted middle aged woman doesn’t need an excuse to do a nice thing for herself? Especially away from all those people you love, adore, would die for, and who are so gods-blessed NOISY all the time?
However, I am rubbish at coming up with artist date ideas. I came across this post recently with a list of 100 Different Artist Dates (Don’t click out of mine yet, you fickle reader! Just open it in a new tab along with your 45 other tabs so you can read it later!). I was okay, a little jealous, because I couldn’t even think of ONE artist date, nevermind triple digits! Now, of course, I’ve come up with one, and it’s delightful, so I immediately had to write a newsletter to share it.
First, go to a craft store. I can’t recommend Hobby Lobby, because they have some questionable opinions about 🌈 and poor Joanne’s is going out of business, so I mostly am stuck with Michaels. Hopefully you have some good craft stores near you. Then, give yourself a spending limit to buy yourself a “treat.” Say, $25, nothing crazy. Now, wander around letting your eyes—and maybe your fingertips—drift across all the various offerings, and wait for any little tug of, “Ooh, that’s cool!” or especially, “I wish I could do that.”
If you immediately try to talk yourself out of the thing you want—because you’re not “good” at it, or you’ve never done it before, or you don’t have space in the house for it, or that’s not the kind of thing YOU usually do, yup, that’s the one. Just run the card right now.
When I did this, I…immediately found 3 presents for other people and nothing for myself. LOL. Which is right in character. But honestly, a little of that is okay, too? Gratitude and generosity can light up our creative side just as much as the art itself! And if you really don’t have any room in the apartment for any possible thing you made, make a gift for someone else. Then they have to figure out how to fit it in THEIR apartment and your problems are solved!
(Am I trying to justify the fact that on my artist date I bought 4 presents for other people and 2 craft projects for myself, both of which are to make gifts for others? QUIET, JAN, THIS ISN’T YOUR NEWSLETTER.)
One thing that surprised me about my own artist’s date experience was that I normally go into stores on the default setting of, “Buy nothing ever. Bad. Put that down. Don’t look.” It felt thrillingly OPEN to know I was allowed to get something. I was…allowed to have a nice thing?
I think the artist date would have been worth it for that alone, but the real value of these is how much they spark more ideas, more energy, more flow into your creative well. No matter what medium you normally work in, and no matter what medium you chose from the aisles of whatever your non-homophobic-craft-store-of-choice was.
24 More Artist Date Ideas:
Wander through a Farmer’s Market, enjoying the colors and textures. Try to find an object of a type you’ve never seen before!
Wander through an art gallery. Find the piece you love the most, and then find the piece you hate the most, and articulate to yourself in actual words what about them you responded to.
Are we getting the idea yet that the operative verb for Artist Dates is “wander”? Mmmhmm. The idea is not to have a plan, or a deadline, but to follow the tiniest tug of your own whims. That’s why you go alone, so you don’t have to please anyone but yourself.
Photo by Matthieu Jungfer on Unsplash Go for a walk. Write a fictional story of 1-2 pages about something you see, whether it’s a person, animal, object, or action.
Go for a walk while listening to podcasts. I don’t know why, but podcasts are the medium that sparks the most ideas in me. Possibly because they’re such an intimate, conversational style, and no matter what the “topic” there always ends up being interesting tangents or tidbits in there.
Take yourself out to a restaurant patio with no book, no phone. Maybe some blank paper? See what you notice. Try to focus in on things that normally slip by you, like a type of animal you don’t usually pay attention to, or the colors of people’s shoes.
Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash Go somewhere public and write a story in your head about a person or group that you see. Now, pick a second “victim” and write another story—but in this one, they’re the villain, not the hero.
Fake shopping spree! Go to the library and “impulse buy” a book on anything that tugs at you, and read it right away while your enthusiasm is still fresh!
Smell Tour- Go to a familiar place and catalogue every smell you can discern, writing them all down and making up words for the ones that you can notice but not name.
Write a haiku about something you saw. It’s okay if you have to google to remember how to write a haiku—I did.
Immerse yourself in a different sensory environment. Maybe a liquid one? Go swimming! Maybe a foam ball pit? Hello trampoline park! Maybe one with no sensory input at all? Oh, hello sensory deprivation float tank. I wasn’t expecting to see YOU here.
Ride one of those weird electric rental scooters you always see the kids on. It’s fun! (Yeah, bring a helmet, though.)
Photo by Christina Spinnen on Unsplash Make yourself a blanket fort and crawl into it. What do you want in there with you? How do you feel different in here than you do on the furniture of your normal, adult life?
Go wandering through a place of shopping and find a gift for someone you know, without starting with anyone in mind. Next, choose a gift for a person you made up. (Up to you if you buy either!)
Move weird. Set a timer for 5 minutes and move your body in a way it never moves. Do you normally walk forward? Walk backwards! Do you ever dance? Shake your hips a little. Crawl, crabwalk, maybe hang upside down off the end of the bed. Wiggle your arms and fingers in a way they never normally move. (This Artist Date sponsored by Valley Chiropractic!)
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash Tasting tour! Deliberately go out to TASTE new and different flavors.
Go out and choose something to make your body more beautiful. Clothes? Nail polish? A new hair thing, an accessory, a bit of jewelry? A tattoo? Wait for the thing that makes you go, Oh, yes that on the inside.
Go to a playground and go on as many of the toys as you can without upsetting a child, or your primary care physician.
Sword yoga (I said what I said, look up Weapon Up on Instagram)
Take yourself to a movie. Choose a snack you don’t normally allow yourself. Remember which ones you liked best as a child and think about if you still like those. After the movie, watch alllll the credits and let images from the movie drift through your thoughts as you watch the names of all the people who did different forms of art so that you could be there, enjoying that movie today.
Write or sketch or do your preferred art form, but in a different chair or environment. Hammock? Library? College campus? Dive bar? Sleeping bag?
Watch stand up comedy until one of the jokes makes you think of something you could wind into YOUR art. Pause the set and write it down, or make it right now!
Do something with your hands and something with your ears. Coloring and binaural beats? Crochet and a biography of Shonda Rhimes?
Go on Pinterest and make a new pages, just of things you LIKE from every category your little heart can possibly imagine. Mix them all together in a great, big chaotic jumble. Even if you’re dying to organize them—just remember, you already did! They’re all part of the great category of YOU.
Remember, friends, art doesn’t just have to be about creating things, or even making things to share. It can be just for FUN.
Love these!
You're a traveller, Michelle, put searching out independently owned art supply stores on your schedule of things to do when in a different location. It's an old art teacher trick I've used for years. Bonus points is you find one near an indie French patisserie or coffee shop ( two birds, one stone).