Reflections on Artistic Time

Reflections on Artistic Time, Trusting Process, and Allowing Your Own Pace

I’ve been thinking about the term artistic time because, in the context of art, there really is no prescribed timeline for when or how a work should be made. The process can be slow, fast, or somewhere in between. Ideas can flood in quickly, only to meet the slow resistance of materials—or a creative dry spell. In an increasingly fast-paced world where we’re urged to share our work and live publicly outside of our creative lives, this presents a real conflict. And I fear it’s one that threatens the quality of our art.

When we feel pressure to share quickly—or fear losing engagement—we’re already operating from a sense of lack. No one has said this to me in those exact words, but the message has been loud and clear over the past decade. I’ve felt it. I know I’m not alone.

There are seasons when everything blooms at once—ideas, clarity, connections. And there are seasons that feel uncertain, almost painfully still. It’s like a quiet ache, that leaves you feeling left behind. It tends to show up in transitional spaces—when something has ended, or hasn’t yet begun. When the calendar keeps moving but we feel motionless. At the worst of times, this is where comparison creeps in.

But what if the problem isn't that we're behind—what if the problem is how we measure time?

Time Is Not Linear

We’ve been taught to see time like a racetrack: fast, competitive, one-way. Milestones are mapped by age or status—graduate by X, achieve by Y, retire by Z. Even in the creative world, we absorb this urgency: publish faster, build a following, stay relevant.

But creativity—like healing, like growth—doesn’t move in straight lines. And more often than not, it moves very slowly.

Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way:

“Creativity is not a business, although it frequently creates business. Creativity is not a race, although we may feel we are falling behind.”

Especially in our modern culture, it's no wonder we often feel this way. But this mindset can be quietly destructive. When we measure our lives against others’ timelines, we risk missing the beauty of our own unfolding—and even creating anything worthwhile at all.

Seasons of Becoming

Nature models a different kind of time—one rooted in rhythm rather than speed. Trees drop their leaves. Soil rests. Flowers bloom only when they’re ready. No one calls a seed late for sprouting.

What if we honored those same seasons within ourselves?

If your creative energy feels low, your clarity missing, or your momentum slow, it may not be failure—it may simply be winter. A time to compost. To gather. To restore. Some seasons are for making. Some are for listening. Some are for simply being.

Time as a Spiral

Instead of viewing progress as linear, imagine it as a spiral—a return to the same questions, places, and parts of yourself, again and again, each time deeper. Each time wiser.

In a spiral, you’re never behind. You’re simply circling closer to your own truth.

There’s grace in the burning. And power in the slow rise.

Learning to Trust the Process

If you're in a moment of pause, or searching for your next creative foothold, take heart: you are not lost. You’re not late. You are in a necessary part of the process.

Let yourself rest, if you need rest. Let yourself move slowly. Let yourself write badly for a while—or not at all. There is a pulse beneath it all, and it will return. Your voice is not gone. It’s just waiting for the right season to speak again.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in Braiding Sweetgrass, writes:

“In some Native languages, the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us.’ The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

So, too, does your creativity.

You’re not behind.

You’re becoming.