Behind the scenes, and a reflection on creative practices
I have something a little different for you today: a peek into my creative practice of growing things and really noticing the changes.
I got my first plant (indoor or outdoor) during the early days of the Covid pandemic and lockdown. I have since grown my collection to 35 indoor houseplants, 12 flowering outdoor plants, and 2 trees. Before March 2020, I was a plant killer. I had never kept a plant alive for more than a few months. So I never had plants in the house.
During lockdown, my social media exploded with stories from plant lovers, and I was amazed and captivated by the love and enthusiasm plant parents had for their little green babies. I wanted to feel that way, too!
I read an article about how tending plants and watching them grow could help relieve some of the stress and uncertainty of pandemic life, and I thought to myself, I need that. Plants! I must have plants! So I found a local plant shop that offered no-contact delivery, and I started my houseplant adventure with a delivery of three small green babies. I decided to spend a little bit of time with them, at every watering, to really look and notice what was happening.
This combination of wanting joy, needing to see something growing, and deciding to document what was happening—this became a new type of creative practice for me.
I have killed as many plants as I currently have living with me, but, through watching, caring, trying things, and, yes, killing a few, I have learned so much about helping them thrive. Most of my 35 houseplants are now several years old.
Creative work can spring forth in so many different ways. It might look like classic “creativity”—drawing or painting—but, actually, I think creativity is anything and everything that engages our hearts and our eyes and our hands and our hopes. It’s visual art, but it’s also growing things. It’s all the things that make us feel more alive.
My friend and knitting colleague, Kavitha Raman, wrote beautifully about the value of tinkering, learning, and trying new things in her newsletter this week. Give her piece a read and subscribe:
Everything she wrote really resonates for me—in my houseplant adventure and with my knitting work and business—and I think it may resonate with you, too. Especially this:
“I am your fellow maker and learner, traveling the same path as you.”
We all have a creative practice—one of mine is knitting. Maybe your creative practice is also knitting. Maybe it’s crochet. Or maybe it’s baking, or being cozy, or growing things. We thrive when we find ways to travel the same path as one another—to truly see and connect.
I hope you have abundant creativity in your day today and in your upcoming week. Being creative, slowing down to watch the stories around us unfold, unwinding from consumer culture, and making things with your hands … these are the things I wish for you. They are the ways I find myself feeling solid and grounded, and I think it might feel the same for you, too. And if these things aren’t where you find solace, I hope you find what helps you feel at your best. I am rooting for you!
Be well,
Anne
Ah yes, I remember my social media exploding with green thumbs, too! That and sourdough bread bakers. I have also killed my fair share of plants, but have a few somehow still sticking around. I originally got them probably 8 years ago, when my son was a baby and I became obsessed with this idea of clean air in his bedroom, so I got him a snake plant that now lives on my kitchen windowsill.
The pandemic brought me my vegetable garden which *mostly* feeds wildlife, but occasionally we manage to steal away a few yummy heirloom tomatoes.
these days, I try to let my creativity bloom in my dye pots, but I also practice watercolor and am learning to drum. I live somewhere between reticence and chaos. 😂
We started an indoor/ outdoor citrus garden during Covid. We’ve lost a few. Enjoyed blooms and fruit that we would have never experienced living here in New England. It’s been a joy, but also painful going from 1500 sq ft to 600 means the plants are practically living on top of us from sometime in October through April at least. It’s worth it most days!