A Practical Guide to an “Artist Date”
Why you’re long overdue and 3 tips to get you started.
Today I’m thrilled to share a guest post from my fellow SF Bay Area creative colleague Vanessa Li!
Vanessa Li is the founder of Tomatokind (tomatokind.com), a growing community of nearly 1,000 multi-passionate professionals redefining what it means to build a creative life alongside a stable career. She is a public health practitioner by training; service designer by trade; and working musician, writer, and community-gatherer by passion. Over the past decade, Vanessa has transformed services and institutions that aid marginalized communities, with experience at organizations including The MITRE Corporation, NBBJ Design, Mayo Clinic, goinvo, and Stanford University. Creativity, though, has remained a core pillar of her life. And, it has only grown since she started her Substack in mid-2023, uplifting the journeys of artisan, storytellers, and small-business owners from around the world. If you were to peek into Vanessa’s world, you would be greeted by Broadway musicals on full-blast and her 100-lb Great Pyrenees (followed by a lint roller). This year, Vanessa will be launching a podcast called Possibilities Club Podcast, an immersive audio docu-series that will follow the lives of inspiring multi-passionate individuals. Follow Tomatokind for more stories, tiny experiments, and a community reigniting their creative spark together.
I’m always inspired by the creative adventures that I see Vanessa posting on the Tomatokind Instagram, so I was delighted to see her choice of topic today. Without further ado, here are her words!
Introducing the Artist Date
Popularized by Julia Cameron (author of “The Artist’s Way”, a 12-week manual and “spiritual guide” for creativity), an “artist date” is defined as an intentional, quality block of time set aside to nurture one’s creative consciousness: a playdate with your inner artist.
If you’re thinking: “I’m not an artist” (inner or outer), or “I aged out of playdates eons ago. I’m good”...hear me out.
Carving out time for play and creativity is essential to not only an artist’s life, but all of our lives.
You might think you’re the furthest thing from “an artiste”. You are not a painter or photographer or musician or craftsperson. But, we all paint the canvas of life with our colors, sculpt our days, draw on inspiration from our environment, draft plans for our dreams and desires, and iterate our realities with new mediums.
We are all artists in our own right.
At one point in our lives, we believed it too (think back to when you were 6 years old: drawing masterpieces you were proud to show off).
At some point along the way, though, our imagination and creativity was forced to take a back seat to all the “serious and important” things in life. So, we stopped sketching in our sketchbook. We stopped taking peaceful walks in nature and letting haikus form in our heads. We stopped playing pretend. We stopped twisting pipe cleaners into art.
And, many of us slowly forgot that those playful, imaginative, creative, expansive versions of ourselves ever existed.
Due to how commercialized, fast-paced, stressed, and (dare I say) robotic our modern world can feel, it is easy to ignore our inner worlds and its needs.
So, if you feel more or less like life has been passing you by without your intentional creative input, here are 3 practical tips and ideas on planning your next artist date…to reawaken what’s not gone, but perhaps just a bit dormant.
3 Tips for Planning Your Next Date
Get curious about your routine:
Maybe you’ve lived in the same town or city for years. But, you don’t know anything about the bike path you take to work everyday. Who advocated for building it? How did they manage running it through 4 municipalities? Or, who are the artists behind the beautiful murals that line its surroundings? Consider taking a free walking tour in your own neighborhood (most cities have non-profits that run historical and cultural tours), or plan a self-guided one. For example, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I’ve had the pleasure of participating in many free walking tours led by San Francisco City Guides (they have them every single day of the week).
Other ideas to get curious about your routine? Sticking with the commuting theme, consider shaking up your routine one of these days. If you typically bike to work, maybe take public transit tomorrow. Notice the different route, the new people you see along the way, the buildings or billboards you hadn’t noticed before.
Planning an artist date doesn’t need to be hard or even take extra time. It can simply come from a slight shift in your everyday routine.
Revisit one of your favorite activities as a kid:
Think back to a younger version of you. It could be when you were 5 or 10, or 22, or 30. Pick an age and ask yourself: what did I love doing at that age? Was it skateboarding? Going to comedy shows? Running lines at theater camp? Playing hockey? Drawing? For your next artist date, pick one of these activities and go do it. If you used to skateboard, maybe go scavenge for the board that’s been living in a dark corner of your storage closet and take it to a local skate park on a Saturday morning. If you’re too scared to actually ride it, you could even just watch other skaters. Notice the swelling in your heart when you revisit something you’ve loved before.
For me, it was quad skating. I had a cheap pink-colored pair when I was 10 and I remember wobbling around in it. I was never any good, but it was always a blast. A couple years ago, I bought myself a pair of adult skates; I would strap myself up with knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards, and find the emptiest, most-deserted parking lot and spend hours moseying about like a sad penguin. I probably looked absolutely comical, but it was amazing how much fun (and how rewarding it felt) to be a beginner (at something I once loved) again.
Today, I keep my skates in a bright yellow bag by the back door and try to take it out for a whirl at least once a month. And, it leaves me rejuvenated (and breathless) every time.
Do it alone:
Solitude is an incredibly sacred and happy place for some people. And, this level of peace and contentment is so special and admirable.
For others, though, it can be a place we try our hardest to avoid. I grew up an only child and was forced to be alone a lot. I didn’t love it most of the time, but I endured it. Inevitably, I found solo things to do that gave all my alone-time purpose, meaning, and joy (like reading).
But, my lonesome childhood is also why I’ve filled most of my adult life with people. Lots of them. Lots of activities, gatherings, lunches, social hours, events, hikes, hangs, community meet-ups…
And, it wasn’t until I faced my discomfort with being alone that I discovered the joy, play, discovery, and creativity that can come with time spent by oneself. So, if you’re like me at all, try this: pick an activity that you would normally want to do with someone else…and do it alone.
Want to go watch a new movie? Or, check out a new vintage store? Or, take a day-trip to the mountains (or the beach)? Or, go to trivia night at your local brewery?
Instead of texting the group chat, pencil it into your own calendar and make it a date with yourself. Extra credit: make it a date with your inner child. Choose a movie or place or piece of clothing they would like. Notice what it feels like to spend quality time with just yourself. Is it delightful? Stressful? How can you make it more awesome next time?
So, those are my tips!
When I first started reading “The Artist’s Way”, I planned an artist date every week for 20 weeks. I had the reminder of the book and the accountability of a friend I was reading the book with. And, they were absolutely magical. Slowly, though, I’d forget about it and go weeks without planning one.
This past month, I have been feeling the need to go back to a weekly cadence. I guess my inner artist is just in need of more nurturing lately, so I’ve resumed this lovely routine.
Concluding Thoughts
For some people, planning (and completing) an artist’s date is the easiest thing in the world: a long-awaited reminder, an excuse, a permission slip, a release…
For others, it can feel like the hardest thing in the world: unnatural, embarrassing, silly, weird. Especially for those of us who haven’t acknowledged our creativity (or have lived our lives feeling like the antidote of an artist), developing a creative practice of self-nourishing can be challenging. But, try to not let the feeling stop you from trying again.
However it feels for you, it’s perfectly fine.
So, I’m curious:
If this is your first time hearing about an artist date, do you think you’ll try it? What might your first artist date be?
And, if you’re well-acquainted with the artist date and it’s touched your livelihood in some way, can you share some dates you’ve taken yourself on? What was a particularly memorable one?
With zeal and gratitude for this creative life,
Vanessa Li
P.S. Thank you, Rebecca Hass, for sharing your creative journey and practice with the world and for committing to spreading creative joy far and wide. It has been an honor to walk my artist’s journey alongside you, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with the creative minds and hearts in your community!
🤩 Share your creative joys! 🤩
From now on, each email will feature a section celebrating my creative joys, and YOURS, too!
Hit reply to share any kind of creative joy you’re causing or experiencing, and I’ll share it next time! 🤗
Examples of creative joys:
celebrating a small action you took on a project
something inspiring you read / heard / saw
someone else’s work of art
an item that makes your creative workspace a better place to be
My current joys:
João Bosco Quartet live at Birdland - When I saw that João Bosco was playing Birdland, I was lamenting being on the opposite coast, but much to my delight, here’s a full concert on YouTube! (If you don’t know of João Bosco, he’s one of Brazil’s most legendary songwriters, check him out!)
I love this linoleum block print by Portland, Maine artist Katharine Watson! 🍅 🌺
This moon embroidery by Laura Ortiz Vega! 😍🧵🤩 (I've never made it past embroidery kits...yet...so this is #goals!)
Next time this section will be full of more joys, beaming out to you from me and anyone who wants to contribute!
🕸️ Staying on the good side of the internet 🕸️
The Discipline of Being Private While Building in Public by Nafisa Bakkar - I often think about the boundaries we have to set in order to share online comfortably, and I found the idea of an “architecture of privacy” especially interesting.
Unfinished on Purpose by Michelle LaCroix - I always find Michelle’s writing to be lovely, as well as her thoughtfully crafted projects and frameworks - I love the idea of the Micro Memory project (in praise of small actions and imperfect practices!)
Advice I Would Give My Mother (and you) to Enhance Her Creative Life by Dave Conrey - Lovely advice for the easily discouraged and/or easily distracted!
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