Shell Study I 

Every once in a while, hopefully not too often, we creative folks find ourselves in a place of deep funk, the blues, melancholy, depression. It comes with the territory of being creative, they say. Lately I've been there, and truth be told, there is only one way I know out of it. One thing that will shed some light in the shadows: "Create Something!"

"But how do I do that?" you may ask. You don't feel creative, you're in a funk. You do it by doing it. Even when the last thing you want to do is do anything at all, simply create something. There is an enormous curative power to the act of creating. Participating in the creative process is life-affirming, a saying "yes" to the universe (which is itself nothing more than the creative process on the grandest scale!). 

Nature herself is the most tangible evidence we have of creating in the face of adversity and despair. Look at a forest devastated by fire, that generates new growth over time in the wake of tragedy. The impulse to create is hard-wired into our DNA. Stories of people who have created something as a means of coping with personal or global tragedy are everywhere. There is always something, something, you can create in the midst of your funk.

You don't necessarily need to create a photograph, or series of photographs. Whatever you create, no matter how small or insignificant, will be enough. It's a start and the beginning of a way out the dark. Creativity feeds on itself, grows, and becomes a living fire that ignites our imaginations, and is the basis of hope.  

You, nature, the universe, all create something in the face of the great dark of space. I don't know of a simpler, better expression of the "YES!"...