Take a Date – EJPitman

This weekend is the 20th anniversary of Artisphere on Main Street of Greenville, SC. One of the reasons that we moved to Greenville was the ‘art scene’. We had no idea what that would amount to until we got here. Greenville not only has one of the most beautiful Main Streets that I have ever seen, she also has no problem shutting down parts of Main Street on a regular basis for performances and markets. Artisphere is one of just many festivals hosted in the city.

Artisphere 2024 will include 140 visual artists, four stages for performing artists, and a celebration of culinary artistry as well. Beginning on Friday morning, traffic will be routed around the outskirts of the festival and guests will come together to celebrate creativity, ingenuity, and community.

For the first time since we moved here, I have carved some time on Friday afternoon where I will go wander among the visual art stalls by myself. I love experiencing Artisphere as a family, but something in me this year is tugging for some alone time among the crowds. I’m looking forward to walking at my pace and pausing or moving on as my muse leads. I read The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron) for the first time over a decade ago. My current edition of it was purchased in 2017 and is filled with underlines from various readings. (Full disclosure: I have NEVER made it the whole way through the book. Skimming through, I find the first chapter with no underlines is Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy. Hmmmm.)

Cameron offers two main tools for the discovery and recovery of your creative self – Morning Pages and the Artist’s Date. She writes:

“An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan…”

Cameron says this is to be done on your own, but I have found that sometimes sharing my artists dates with my family has enhanced my experience. Just as many books about marriage and relationships suggest that you need to put in time and intention, the artist date is meant nurture your artist self.
What does your self want to do this month that will nurture you?

Visit a quilt shop,
go to history museum,
brain dump and dream on a white board,
go sit at a local book store or a library,
visit a zoo,
take a walk in the woods,
play with sums and formulas on an excel sheet,
or sit in a coffee shop eavesdropping while it looks like you are reading?

What will fill you up and tend to you in the way that you most want right now?
Send me a picture from your playdate, whenever it might be.
And I’ll share some of my Artisphere pictures next week. Cheers.