Sustaining Creativity: How to Stay Fresh After Years of Making Art

There’s a kind of slow fade that happens sometimes when you’ve been making art for a long time. It doesn’t usually come with fireworks or a big moment of burnout. It’s quieter than that. It shows up when you’re halfway through a piece and realize you’ve done this before… not this exact thing, but something close. It’s the feeling of repetition, of comfort that’s turned a little stale. You know your tricks. You’ve leaned on them before. You could finish a piece without even thinking too hard about it, and while that might sound efficient, it doesn’t always feel great.

I’ve been through those phases more than once. After twenty-some years of making, teaching, showing, and running the art-business-life blender, I’ve had to pause and re-evaluate how I stay connected to the work. Not just technically, but emotionally. What’s still exciting about it? What still feels necessary? And where have I started phoning it in?

These are the kinds of questions that don’t always have clean answers. But the asking is where the energy starts to come back. So I’m sharing some of the things that have helped me keep going… not just going through the motions, but actually feeling present in my work again. Some of these are things I’ve done for years. Others are new. None of them are magic fixes, but they’ve helped me feel more connected, more awake, and more curious in the studio.

One of the biggest shifts has been making space for creative play again. It’s so easy to forget to play when your work has structure around it… shows, deadlines, client projects, even your own internal calendar. For a long time, I stopped experimenting because I didn’t want to “waste” materials. Or I worried that if something didn’t turn into a finished piece, it didn’t count. That’s a mindset I’ve been actively working to unlearn. Now, I set aside regular time to just mess around. No product, no post, no purpose. Just get your hands moving. Sometimes that means cutting up old test prints and gluing them into a new sketchbook. Sometimes it means playing with a tool I don’t know how to use. It almost never leads directly to something I sell. But it always, always leads to something I learn.

I’ve also been pushing myself to look at more work, not just scrolling through fast on social media, but really sitting with it. Visiting a gallery and slowing down. Taking time to flip through books, even ones I’ve already looked at. Going to an artist talk and listening to someone talk about their process with zero filter. These are the things that remind me why I make art in the first place. I think you have to refill your visual reservoir regularly. Otherwise, you just start recycling your own leftovers. And I don’t mean you need to chase trends or mimic others. This is more about exposure, about reactivating that part of your brain that gets excited when it sees something unexpected.

I started doing a regular check-in with my own influences, too. A kind of informal audit. I’ll pull up older work or old sketchbooks and look at what I was doing five, ten, even fifteen years ago. What patterns show up? What have I let go of? What still feels alive? You’d be surprised how often there’s a clue there. Sometimes I’ll notice a little idea I dropped because I didn’t know what to do with it at the time. But now, it feels possible. It’s not about reusing the same idea. It’s about recognizing that you had something there, and maybe now you have the skills or vision to do it justice.

One thing I really recommend is changing scale. It sounds small, but it can shake everything up. If you always work small, try going big. If you work big, shrink things down to fit in a sketchbook. Use index cards. Try tiny zines. Blow something up to poster size. Scale affects how we move, how we think, and even how long we stay with something. It forces your brain to solve new problems. And for me, that usually kickstarts a different kind of attention. I notice edges again. I think more about composition. It’s one of those physical shifts that leads to creative shifts.

Another thing that’s helped is getting a little more intentional with materials. I don’t mean going out and buying a bunch of new supplies, though that can be fun. I mean revisiting what I already have with fresh eyes. I cleaned out my studio last winter and found a set of ink I hadn’t touched in years. I started playing with it again and realized how much I missed working in black and white. It helped me refocus on contrast and form, which brought a new energy into my abstract pieces. Sometimes we don’t need more stuff. We just need to remember what we already have access to.

When I hit a real creative wall, I set small challenges. Not for Instagram. Not for anyone but me. Something like “make five pieces in one color” or “use only scraps for a week” or “no brushwork, just tools from the kitchen drawer.” These constraints give me just enough of a container to play without overthinking. It’s like setting up a game where I get to make the rules, but the rules have to be a little weird. That weirdness is where the good stuff comes from.

I’ve also started sharing more of the in-between work. Not just the polished or finished stuff. I don’t always put it on social media. Sometimes I’ll just send a pic to a friend or show a student during a studio visit. But letting someone see that raw, not-sure-yet part of the process brings energy back into the room. It reminds me that art isn’t only about the product. It’s about the connection. It’s about showing up with something half-formed and trusting that it still matters.

And I’ve had to get a lot more honest with myself about rest. Real rest. Not scrolling or passively watching something while I answer emails. I mean unplugging. Walking. Sitting outside. Reading something unrelated to art. Letting myself be bored without rushing to fill the gap. That’s where my ideas creep back in. When I stop trying to be productive every second, my mind opens back up. It’s hard at first. It feels like you’re doing nothing. But that “nothing” is exactly where the recharge lives.

Another practice that’s become a regular part of my week is journaling after I work. I’ll ask myself a few simple questions: What felt good about today’s studio time? What didn’t? What surprised me? What would I try differently next time? I’m not trying to turn this into a whole formal review process. It’s just a way to listen to my own creative feedback loop. Over time, those entries help me spot patterns. I notice when I’ve been avoiding color or when I’ve been repeating forms without thinking. It keeps me engaged with my own evolution.

I’ve also been thinking more about how I want to feel while I make. Not just what I want the outcome to look like, but how I want to experience the process. Do I want quiet and solitude? Do I want to blast music? Do I want a loose, fast pace or a slow, deliberate one? It changes. And giving myself permission to respond to that change has helped me stay tuned in instead of running on autopilot. You don’t have to work the same way every day. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t. Flexing your process keeps it fresh.

Teaching has helped here, too. When I explain something to a student, it brings me back to basics. It reminds me why I care about composition or gesture or material. Every time I walk a student through a challenge, I hear my own words and realize whether I still believe them. If you don’t teach formally, you can still do this. Talk about your work out loud. Explain what you’re doing to your future self. Record it if that helps. You’ll hear things in your voice that don’t always show up in your head.

And finally, I’ve been letting some things go. That part’s hard. Letting go of old expectations. Letting go of a series that used to work but doesn’t light me up anymore. Letting go of the pressure to always have a clear direction. Sometimes the best way to stay fresh is to clear space. You don’t need to have a big plan. You don’t need to know what’s next. You just need to stay open enough to notice when something new starts whispering at the edge of your awareness.

If you’ve been making for a while and something feels stuck, try any one of these. Try two. Layer them. Break them up. Return to something you forgot you loved. Borrow an idea from your past and remix it. Talk about your work even when it feels awkward. Play like no one will see it. Rest even if you feel like you haven’t earned it.

You’re still in this. You’re not behind. You’re just between. Let yourself be between for a while. That’s where the next thing usually starts.