artist dates

I'm filling myself up with them. (An Artist Date is a tool developed by Julia Cameron in the Artists Way book, whereby people go off for a block of time weekly on their own to have fun - normally for about two hours). I find them the most difficult thing to persuade some students to do. They sound so pointless, indulgent, counter productive, surely to be more creative one should work more?

But I find that without them 'productivity' of a creative kind or otherwise dries up. We need the input and stimulus to have the building blocks for creativity. Art as Julia Cameron writes is an 'image using system'. We need to go out and fill ourselves with images to have something to express. This is true of every art form. Even for people who are 'not creative' it makes them happier, cheerful, more interesting and more passionate and centred. All this just for a spot of fun, a dolup of pleasure, a scoop of indulgence.

I'm just about to cross the road and go and read magazines for free in Borders - a favourite artist date.