If there were one word that would describe me this past week it would be: aimless.

I haven’t felt like doing anything. I have two paintings in the works, but I haven’t been able to move forward. I haven’t done my morning pages at all.  I haven’t done any sketching. I haven’t blogged. I’ve been aimless.

I did manage to read through this week’s chapter of The Artist’s Way and do some of the exercises, and, to my surprise, the author reminded over and over again that the inspiration, motivation, and creativity is bound to wax and wane. She maintained that throughout the artist’s recover, there is bound to be ups and downs.

Thank god, because this week was a down.

Regardless, I did also manage to set aside time for my weekly artist’s date.

I set out with the intention of going thrifting. I had visions of sifting through the countless treasures in a bunch of local thrift stores and finding things that inspired me, were interesting, or, better yet, could be used in a new mixed media piece. I got some much needed coffee and drove to the first thrift store – Thrift Village, usually one of my favorites, and quickly realized that I didn’t have the energy or the gumption to do any sort of sifting.

I left the thrift store empty handed.

I drove around – aimlessly – for a solid 20 minutes.

I ended up at Barnes and Noble. Conveniently, there’s a new one pretty close to my house. When I walked in, I was greeted by the bargain book rack, and it was filled with art books. I grabbed a book on expressionist color, another on watercolor technique, and another on 20th century artists. I quickly found the “Art Section” and picked up another three or four books. I found a table, upstairs in a quiet place and spent the next two hours reading the books I had found.

It was simple, close to home, and cost me no money (Barnes & Noble is like a giant library that lets you buy coffee), but it was exactly what I needed. I loved the books I found – I even ended up buying three of them – and I’m excited to finish reading them more thoroughly.

It’s encouraging to me that even though the entire week seemed absolutely off, I still was able to take time out to do a simple, seemingly every-day activity to help me feel a little more inspired, a little more creative, and just a little better.

And, it turns out, the Universe would answer my desire to find something cool in a pile of nothing later this weekend – more on that in my next post!