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Self-Care

What do you do to practice better self-care? What do you do when you’re in a funk?

James Temte:

I need to get outside every day. Especially in the winter.

Every day around noon I’ll go for a bike ride, a walk, cross-country ski or something. It really helps me keep the big things big and the small things small. Because it’s easy to get wrapped up in small things, especially with deadlines.

It’s important for me to kind of step back and be like, Okay, all this will pass and it may not be the perfect thing in the end, but I’ll still be alive. And I want to be alive in a good way, I don’t want to sacrifice my body or my sanity for these things that are just going to pass. I’ve learned that the hard way. It’s important for artists to take care of themselves.

American culture. . . . it’s like, Let’s just work, work, work and forget about what we need as a human being.

So being mindful, I guess. I hate using that word, but it’s so good sometimes. But just being true to yourself and respecting who you are as a human. Caring about that is important.

I definitely know if I’m not in a good place, creating is harder. Good work comes from that too, but I prefer to be in good health and in good mind, and have good relationships, have good friends.

Lindz and [Jon] Lamb:

Lindz: I have multiple sclerosis and I will say that something that is amazing to me in our relationship and creating and working together is that with him as my partner, he takes that into account and makes sure that I have time to rest. Or if there is a wall that I’m not feeling as physically able to do, he really takes the brunt of that burden for me. He also allows me to do hot yoga as much as I want during the week and take my time outside of the studio to take care of myself.

Jon: Having a good foundation of a healthy lifestyle is really important to be able to handle all of it. I think it’s a foundation of our relationship that we’re both able to handle a lot of different things coming down the pipe. We can get the commercial work done and also carve out the time to do the creative work because we both want that.

Patrick Maxcy:

Don’t kill yourself doing it. Breathe, make time to watch a movie or go for a hike. I tend to overwork and say yes and cram in too many jobs which is not always great.

Mike Ravelson:

I think a lot of people are pent up and don’t have any outlets to pour stuff out onto, but you’ve really just got to pour your heart into something and let all those things on your mind spill out, whether it’s on snowboarding or drawing or writing or cooking, cleaning. You can be brooming and be like, Oh, okay – you just think of something and maybe it makes a little more sense. Just finding ways to make sense of everything. . . .

I spend a lot of time by myself as well. I think that’s an important thing to do these days in a world where you can constantly be stimulated by something, especially phones, TVs, computers – really anything.

Ruel Brown:

If I’m distraught or in a funk or not feeling good for whatever reason and it comes to my awareness, it’s like, Oh, I need to just take a minute and create something.

For me, drawing my lines is an exercise in the now. Being present. I’m nowhere else except present when I’m drawing or painting, especially with my lines. Over the years it’s evolved a little bit, but more recently my practice of drawing the lines is a practice in imperfection. Because I will start with one line and I don’t know what it’s going to be, and I accept that, and I love it and I embrace it. And that line will affect the next line. And that line, if I want it to be more flowing or more wavy or the imperfections of my hand that lead this ink or this brush, leads to the next one.

So when I say the practice of imperfection is perfection, it’s perfect the way it is because it’s imperfect. Does that make sense? That’s what drives me to create, the presence of mind to understand that my imperfections are perfect.

I haven’t always thought this way. I think it’s always been in there somehow but being able to articulate it right now to you guys, it’s actually fairly new in these last few years. But I think it’s very important for me. That is what drives me. It’s an exercise, it’s a visual representation of me. Of my imperfections and how they’re perfect.

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