This week, I wanted to talk about reading in relation to creativity. For me, making new things that I love is a completely organic process. I cannot tell myself to create something and then just do it- I tend to hate those types of pieces even if they are visually successful.

I have been taking a break from creating art that I usually make for roughly six weeks now. I have talked about different techniques to cure boredom and lack of creativity, and how I have been just relaxing. More than a few times, I talked about sticker making and the most recent thing I did was work with a medium that I wasn’t entirely familiar with.

As tensions thicken in the world, I find that I am numbing myself from all the hate and lies- it is easy to get accustomed to it. Because of the demand for reading and creating art for school, I find myself wanting to take a massive break and literally do nothing after I exert the smallest amount of energy/creativity.

This week, I picked up my first book in nearly three months. Though it’s been three months since I’ve read a book, I can’t recall the last time that I read for pleasure.

This week, I read the novel, “Push”, by Sapphire. With such a well written and gut-wrenching story, I found myself more than ever, feeling again. This book is not for the average consumer, but, I feel so strongly that if you ever work with kids, are pursuing the medical field, or the mental health field, this is a must-read. Though it is so extremely difficult to get through, this book made me feel compassion towards things and situations that I don’t understand and it made me acknowledge my privileges.

A spark in me ignited again and I am back to having the hard conversations, I am back to fighting for civil rights/human rights, most importantly for me, I am back to wanting to create for myself.

This week, I made bookmarks based on books that I have read and am excited to read.

BLM or ‘Black Lives Matter’ bookmark inspired by this summer and the must-read, “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo and Michael Eric Dyson.

This bookmark was inspired by murder mystery novels, specifically, “The Mist” by Stephen King.

This last bookmark is an ‘Ellen Blue’ or butterfly bush flower, dried and sealed in a plastic bag. This bookmark is heavily inspired by “Push”, and the main charachter Precious.