Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Fear

That Didn’t Work
You had an idea. You tried for it, but the result must be considered a failure. If that didn’t work, what do you do? Does that mean you are a bad artist?
An idea
You get an idea of something you want to try. Call it an inspiration if you will. More likely it is an extension of what you have done before, maybe applied to a new subject or situation.
As an artist, most of our work begins with an idea. As a photographer, we than follow up the idea with trying to realize it as an image. Maybe several, working different positions, lenses, shutter speeds, etc. to try to optimize the resultant image.
If you are very experienced with your craft, you might be able to visualize fairly accurately what the result will be. But no matter how experienced you are, you will get surprises. Surprised can be fun and a great creativity boost.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Fail
But whether you blast away 100 frames or selectively shoot 1 frame of a scene, you will sometimes look at the result and say it was a fail. How we react to such a failure is very important. Your reaction could ultimately determine the level of success you have later.
I’m using the idea of failing, but what does that mean? The definition will be different for each of us, but in general, I hope we can agree that it means the result does not meet our expectation. It does not necessarily mean the image is terrible or unusable, or even bad, but what we planned or pre-visualized did not happen.
At the risk of sounding like a cliché, this is a learning opportunity.©Ed Schlotzhauer
Permission to fail
Failure seems like a terrible fault to some of us. I am one of those in many things, but not in my photography. For my art, I have given myself not only permission to “fail”, but the expectation that I will and should. I have embraced failure as a healthy part of growing as an artist.
This was a big step for me. I discovered that the fact of failure was not the main problem. The larger problem was fear of failure.
How much are we held back in our art by fear of failure? Do we fear being humiliated? Or that people will dismiss us as an untalented lightweight? Do we believe we are somehow bad when a shot does not meet our expectation?
Here’s the reality: few people care about what we do. They are not sitting around thinking about us and they take little or no notice of our work. If they’re not fixated on it, why should we be?
We are our main audience. Our work succeeds or fails based on our own perception. All that matters is whether we get to a result we are happy with. Failures along the way should not matter.
Risk
Author Herman Melville once said, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” I believe the greater risk in our autistic life is to fail to be creative.
AI is constantly learning how to mimic all existing art. The only solution is to be different from what exists.
If we are repeating the same boring stuff that 99% of photographers do, what have we contributed to art or to ourselves? Chasing likes on social media is normalizing. That is, it brings us down to the average level of everyone else.
Theodore Roosevelt said: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.” If we are an artist, the risk is to not give it our full effort and not become what we can be. To let what is within us die because of fear of failure. That seems too great a fate to risk.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Learn, modify, try again
The sports legend Michael Jordan said “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.“
Unlike Michael Jordan, we don’t have millions of fans watching live as we fail. We have the opportunity to curate our work and select what gets presented to people to see. You won’t see my failures, unless I am trying to make a point.
Given that, why should we consider failure a problem? A failure is an experiment. We try something, we see the result, and we like it, or we don’t. Either way we can learn something new and try again. But the reality is, we learn more from failing than from success. But only if we make the effort to figure out the cause.
So, when we’re shooting, we have an idea or a vision of what we want to achieve. We make the image. Later, we examine it closely on our computer. Sometimes the result is far from what we envisioned. That is a time to introspect. To determine what we did or didn’t do that made the result different from what we wanted. Maybe to ask if the result is better or worse than what we visualized.
These days, I find that less of my fails are because of exposure or composition problems. Most are concept-level issues. Ansel Adams said “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” Concept failures are harder to diagnose and correct, but they certainly keep me thinking more.
But whatever the cause of our failure, our goal should be to learn, modify, and try again.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Sketches
I consider most of my images to be sketches. Things that are helping me work toward an idea I haven’t fully envisioned. When I shot film, these experiments were expensive, and I tried to minimize the loss. Digital frames seem almost free. No problem to take several experimental tries.
So now we should be free to work a scene as much as seems valuable. But I seldom do it that way. My sketches are more tests to see if what I saw can become a good image. Perhaps it is a fault of mine, but I spend little effort making many slight variations of a scene.
I don’t like doing comparison tests of 12 different views of a scene to try to figure out which is best. If I come up with 4 that are equally good, how do I decide a “best”? When I find myself in this situation, I often conclude I am not really applying much creativity to the image. I seem to be optimizing for technical concerns.
A possible exception is shooting intentional camera motion (ICM) images. Each frame could be considered a failure from a purist technical perspective – blurry, motion, no sharp subject. These are fun because it is an abstraction technique, and each frame is unique. For these, I may do a few variations on a scene, trying different motion techniques. You never know exactly what the outcome will be. There are occasional happy surprises.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Discoveries
When we allow ourselves permission to fail, we sometimes discover that we have stumbled onto something entirely new. We see a glimpse of a new creative statement starting to form.
This is a different form of courage in the face of failure. The recognition that yes, we failed in what we tried, but it opened a new insight on our world. The first emergence of this new idea is probably crude. It seems like a failure. But as we reflect on why we are drawn to it, why we do not immediately delete it, it may give new insight to change our viewpoint and try to perfect it.
This is one of those rare and exciting moments when we get a tingling in our spine and we perk up and wonder what just happened here? That is a cue that we are about to step outside our comfort zone. It is dangerous for an artist to be too comfortable for too long.
That is creativity. Sometimes creativity is based on recognizing that what I did didn’t work, but I now see a glimpse of something better. Being an artist is a process, not a destination. Failure can be an opportunity to advance ourselves to a better state. Analyze it, experiment, modify, try again to see if you are going in a good direction.
Sometimes, finding “that didn’t work” could mean we are on the brink of an exciting new step in our art.
August 20, 2025
Permission to Be an Artist
There is only one thing stopping us from being an artist. We need to give ourselves permission to call ourself an artist. No one else has the authority to do it.
Who regulates “art”?
Who regulates art? Maybe that seems like a silly question, but many of us are hesitant to call ourselves an artist because we have not been officially designated one by some standards board. We haven’t received our certificate.
I don’t know if it is good or bad, but that standards board does not exist. The certificate does not exist, and if it did, it would be meaningless.
Many people and organizations want us to think they are the keepers of the purity of the arts. But they only have authority as far as they can convince other people they have it.
The gatekeepers, whether they are large galleries, or internet influencers, or art schools, or even your local camera club, have no authority to control what is art and who gets to do it.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Who is keeping you from being an artist?
I believe many of us are afraid to consider ourselves an artist for fear that someone will come and say no, we are not qualified. We are afraid we would be publicly humiliated and denounced as not good enough. We did not pass the qualifications. By calling ourselves an artist, we might fear we are elevating ourself to a higher plateau.
Well, we are. But that is a good thing.
This is art, not brain surgery. We do not have to go to school for 12 years then do years of apprenticeship before going before a review board to grant us a license. I’m glad they train doctors like that, but it is not a good model for artists.
The best definition I can remember of art is that anything done as art, is art. So, if you intended that image to be art rather than just a selfie or record shot, then it is art. No one can say it is not.
That no way says that if you intended it to be art then it is great art. Its quality depends on many factors, including your skill and maturity. We learn and improve all our life.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Photographer or artist?
So, when someone asks you what you do, what is your answer? Are you an artist, or a photographer, or do you respond with something vague like, “oh, I like to take pictures”? How you answer and view yourself is your business. But what is keeping you from considering yourself an artist?
I recognize that if we announce ourselves as an artist, we are claiming greater mastery. We present our work and ourselves in a different light. In a different way. Those of us who are introverts get nervous about that. We do not seek attention,
The reality, as I see it, is that it is not about ego or skill level. If we believe we are doing art, we should confidently assert to the world around us that we are artists.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Prove it
Some people are born salesmen. They try to talk the talk without learning how to walk the walk. I do not think that is the case for you who read this. You understand that you must prove what you can do, who you are as an artist. And that is what we do with every image we show the world. It is just as important, if not more important, to prove it to ourselves.
How do we do that?
John Paul Caponigro said “Singular images prove your craft. A body of work proves your artistry.” I think there is wisdom in that.
When you go through your catalog critically, do you find images you would show anyone, anywhere without fear of ridicule? If you find a few, great. You are learning the craft and starting to produce interesting work.
Have you, or can you, put together one or more projects around a theme? A good project would have 10-20 excellent images showing cohesiveness and consistency. This demonstrates your ability to create a body of work.
A single great image may be luck. A good body of work proves you can repeat it. That you are can create regularly and to a consistently high level of quality.
This is certainly not the only way to prove your mastery, but it is a good way. Give it a try and you might surprise yourself.
If you have proved to yourself that you are an artist, do not be afraid to take the label for yourself. Say it proudly. You have given yourself permission. You are the only one who matters.
July 23, 2025
The Color Is…
Color is one of the major considerations in our photo processing. And it can be hard. Have you ever considered how many tools and settings there are to control color in Lightroom and Photoshop?
But where are you on the color concern spectrum? For you, is color:
1. Critical. It must exactly match
2. Important
3. An annoyance
4. Just a design variable
5. Don’t care
Why do we need to change it?
Despite all of the great technology we have, color is still an imprecise and slippery thing to deal with. Different camera manufacturers often create their own unique ‘look”. Fuji, for instance, has profiles built in for some of their famous films (remember Velvia?). But because of different technology and processing tradeoffs, there are subtle differences between, say, Nikon and Canon. There are even small variations between samples of the same camera model,
The color variations are magnified as we move further along the processing chain. What we see is greatly influenced by the decision to shoot RAW or JPEG, and if JPEG, what color balance is chosen. And is our monitor calibrated to ensure it correctly represents the colors in the digital file?
Finally, when we make a print everything can change drastically. The print is strongly influenced by the paper we choose and the printer’s ink set. Using good profiles for the printer and paper combination helps to produce an output that is “similar” to what we edited on screen, but it will never be the same. Just the move from illuminated pixels in RGB space to reflected light from a paper substrate in CMYK space means they can never be exactly the same. The physics is completely different.
The variations along the way are the process of color correcting the image.
Most of us do not see or pay much attention to these differences. The importance to us depends on our application.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Tools
The color correction tool chain starts back in our camera. Specifically, the color balance setting.
The color of the light on our scene varies greatly in different conditions. Bright sunlight is completely different from open shade, as is a cloudy, overcast day. Indoors under tungsten or fluorescent lighting and. even LED’s give different color casts.
Out eye/brain automatically adjusts for most of these differences, but the camera does not. The color balance setting in the camera is a means to dial out the color casts. But this is only useful for JPEG images and the preview we see in camera. Color balance has no effect on RAW images. Those compensations are made in our image editing software.
My camera stays set to Auto White Balance. I only shoot RAW, so it has little effect on my processing or results.
Lightroom
When I say “Lightroom” that is a shorthand for “Lightroom Classic”. That is the only version I care about. But I”m pretty sure everything I say about it applies to both applications. There are differences in color representations in other RAW image processors like Capture One, but I do not have enough experience with them to say much.
Lightroom is packed full of ways to change the color of our image. In the Develop module you are never far from something that can modify color.
Some of the controls change color globally, that is, for the whole image. Just scanning down from top to bottom (I think my controls are still in the default order), we start with profile. This can be a simple selection of default balance or you can set any of the many provided color effects, including black & white toning.
Next there is the white balance adjustment to allow us to adapt the image to a color that should be neutral. Next to that is the color balance selection to partially compensate for lighting conditions.
Right under them is the Temp and Tint sliders. Vibrance and saturation do not actually alter colors much, but they have a strong effect on the look of colors.
Then there is the Tone Curve, where we can adjust red, green, and blue channel properties directly, followed by Color Mixer and Color Grading. Finally there is the Calibration group where we can control hue and saturation of each channel.
All of these are only the control that affect the whole image. We have many of the same controls to perform selective adjust color in regions (like a linear gradient) or spots (e.g the brush tool).
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Partly driven by the application
Hopefully, you get the impression that Lightroom gives us a lot of control of color. It must be important. I won’t even go into Photoshop with its many adjustments. I trust the point is made. This is not a “how to”.
Color adjustment is a large part of what we may deal with in post processing.
Maybe.
It depends on our application and needs.
If you are doing product photography, the customer is very concerned that the color of their logo or product absolutely matches their specification. Portrait customers have a fairly narrow tolerance for off colors in people’s faces. Or you may have a self-imposed rule that the final color must exactly match the original scene.
In these cases you are probably using gray cards or Color Checker swatches to ensure you faithfully match the original. You may even be calibrating your camera to minimize discrepancies. You will probably be using many of these Lightroom controls to adjust the colors to balance out shifts or color casts.
I’m a Fine Art Photographer
But I’m a Fine Art Photographer. I dislike that term and I’m not completely sure what it means, but I do know that what I create is art. Art is not tied to a real scene. Maybe someday I will get into a discussion on indexicality, but not today. By my definition, anything I want to do as art is acceptable.
I may not care at all about the color of the original scene. I’m certainly not fanatical about matching it or balancing color casts. My consideration is how the resulting image looks (to me) and what effect it has for the viewers.
Yet I do use most of the color controls I listed earlier. Except I very rarely use Calibrarion to adjust color, but that’s just me and my thought process. All the other controls, in global and regional and spots, are tools I use frequently.
Color is a subtle thing. Almost imperceptible shifts can create large perceived changes. It can be tricky, or impossible, to achieve an effect I have in mind. But I try.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Not an absolute
Breaking the assumption that my image must look like the original was difficult for me. Coming from a very technical, engineering background made me think in absolutes. Precision was important. But now that the assumption is broken, it is freeing. The realities I started with no longer hinder my vision (as much).
Even so, I do not usually create comic book-like pop art. Unless I want to for some reason. But, on the other hand, I do often enjoy making images that are so extreme you will think I modified them too much, even if I did little at all.
Sometimes color is the subject. Sometimes an image “needs” to be a different color than the original. An extreme use of color modification is black & white. Yes, taking away all color and just leaving tonality is extreme color manipulation.
In the questions I posed at the start, I’m usually operating at about 4 or 5. It is a tool I can apply to accomplish my vision. Not something I am stuck with because that’s what the original was.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Do what you need to do
Color perception is one aspect of a visual image. But it is a powerful one. With our technology, we are blessed with extreme ability to control or modify color. Don’t be afraid to use it creatively.
Unless you are working in an application that demands absolute fidelity to the original, color becomes just another design element to be used for art.
Make your art. The color is… what you need it to be.
Today’s feature image
Is this the “right” color? I don’t know. First, I didn’t have a gray card with me. Second, even if I did, I couldn’t have held it out the window at 40,000 ft. Third and most important, I don’t care.
This is what I remember seeing at the time. It is the way I chose to make the image look. It is art. I like it like that.
March 26, 2025
The Hardest Part
I have figured out what I consider the hardest part of photography. Excluding Marketing. It is selecting a portfolio.
Pick a few
It’s a common situation. Perhaps I am entering a selection for a gallery competition. Maybe a client has requested a few choices for a job. It could be just needing to pick some images for this blog post. Whatever the reason, I am faced with the problem of selecting a small set of images for a certain use.
Oh sure, I have the images that would work. It’s not like I”m not happy with my choices. The problem is selecting only a few.
I’m calling what I am doing here making a portfolio. That is not precisely correct. Formally, a portfolio is a collection of images designed for presentation to an audience. Often one-on-one. However, the process is substantially the same for that and the situations I described. So I will not distinguish them.
Embarrassment of riches
Please don’t take it as bragging, but I have lots of images that I like. I have been at it a long time. Lots as in many thousands. That’s just the ones I promote to my top level selection category. A lot of others in my catalog would be useful for certain applications.
Yes, I have a disciplined filing system. Everything is culled through multiple levels of selection. I find it is hard to pick the ones I like best from a shoot, so my process is oriented around rejecting the ones that are not as good. I don’t know why, but it is easier for me to say “I don’t like that one as well” than to say “I like that one best.” That is repeated through multiple levels. I apply more stringent criteria at each level.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Most of my images are filed geographically and I have an extensive keyword system for tagging all sorts of information. And I use it.
All this should make it easy to find just what I want. You would think, but no. It is easier in that I am only wading through thousands, not hundreds of thousands of images to pick. But that’s not even the most difficult part.
No guidance
We are awash in training material to help us become better photographers. Some if it is actually good. There are thousands of hours of videos on camera operation and composition and visual design. Many more on techniques in the field and techniques for post processing. And gear guides are limitless. As are books to supplement the videos. All of this can help boost our knowledge and improve our technique.
But when it comes to pulling together a portfolio, the advice is: it’s hard, keep editing, get it down to a few great images.
Thanks, but that is not really helpful. Well, it is helpful to find out that I should expect it to be hard and I have to do it myself. But where is the video that shows me to pick this image instead of that one?
Should a choose a tight theme with carefully coordinated image selections, as for a project? Or would it be best to present a range of subjects and styles to show the breadth of my work? Would it help to research the curator of the exhibit to try to guess what they would like? Why would this image work better than that one?
I feel kind of left hanging out there.
I’m on my own
That’s the point and the conclusion. We are on our own. We have to be grown ups and make responsible decisions. That is no fun. It is downright hard. That’s why, to me, this is the hardest part.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
So a typical scenario is that I have to select, say, 4 images for a gallery. Open theme. I’m on my own. No guidance. It is very easy to go through my catalog and pull 50 images that I would like to submit. Another pass or two might get it down to 30 images. Then it gets harder and harder as I push on. I love every one of these images. Eliminating one seems like I am abandoning it. I know that’s not the case, but the feeling is there.
It is sometimes easier if I set it aside for a few days to let the emotions settle down. Then I do my best imitation of being coldly realistic to screen out some more. But what seems to happen is that I get down to, say, 8 images. I can only have 4. That final cut is extremely painful.
i envy people who have a colleague or mentor they can work with to advise the process. I don’t. The decisions have to be made by me with no help. I have an awesome wife, but she isn’t an artist and cannot help with this.
Well, I get there. It is painful. I come away with sadness because I had to eliminate some of my favorites in the final mix. That disappears with time, though. After a few days I can look at the final set and be proud of them.
Overthinking it
A reality is that I tend to overthink it. What I know is that the images I pull are all very good. And I know, and have demonstrated to myself often, that, with a set of excellent images, every time you eliminate one, you make the overall set stronger. That is, if you make intelligent choices. I try to remind myself of great advice I got one time that you will be judged by the worst image you show.
So why do I agonize over it so much? It’s not like I throw a great image away if I remove it from the set.
I think there are two problems. First is that I love these images and feel bad about taking one out, because I’m emotionally attached to it. I can live with that. But the second and bigger problem is, how do I know I have made the best choice?
Self doubt
That is the core of the problem. There is no guidance. I am on my own. There are much bigger and more important choices in life that are like this. Who to marry, what career to pursue, where to live, what investments to make, etc. We must use our judgment to make the decision. It hurts. We want someone to look over our shoulder and tell us we did the right thing. Unfortunately, being an adult doesn’t work like that.
Picking some images for a use is way down in importance from those big life events. Why is it so painful then? I think it is the same fear of failure and the consequences. But I try to be realistic.
So I try to convince myself that the final set I choose will be excellent. Even though I feel like I am in the spotlight and I am being examined to see if I am worthy, I know that if I do the best I can, that will be good enough. And if not, well, nobody dies.
I tell myself that, but it doesn’t feel like it when I am in the pain of the process.
All parts of the photographic process are interesting and challenging. All are subjective, But there seems to be a lot of help to be had in all phases of it up until the final image selection.
Resources
There actually are a couple of resources I have found to help give some education in this. Unfortunately they are not freely available. Peter Eastway, editor of Better Photography magazine, has written an excellent ebook on creating a portfolio. As it says, it is specifically oriented to putting together a portfolio or exhibit. But it still gives a lot of good insights.
Creating a Portfolio might be available at www.betterphotographyeducation.com without a subscription. If not, it is an excellent publication and you will enjoy it. 🙂
Another option that I have found out is not paywalled is a three part series of newsletters in the Paper Arts Collective newsletter. This is a hidden gem of a publication. The series I’m referring to was titled Evolution of a Small Project, and it traced the decisions and selection process he went through to put together an exhibit. If you do prints then you should check out Paper Arts Collective.
But I come back to my original problem. It is hard, no one can really help you, you have to make hard choices yourself based on your judgment and artistic vision. And you have to have confidence in your decisions. To me, it is the hardest part.
November 13, 2024
Sustainability
Sustainability is a common buzz word these days. It is applied to everything. Every company and product claims it. For this, I’m going to redefine sustainability from an artistic point of view.
Creative sustainability
As artists, we live on our creativity. Do you worry that the well may dry up? What if your creativity goes away?
If we produce hard, do we use it up? Or is the engine somehow fed by using more? Is creativity a “sustainable” resource or does it get used up?
Since this is the core of what we do as artists, it is natural to worry about it. Probably all of us at some point have concerns that we may use it up. What would we do then?
So, an ongoing concern for many of us is, should we ration and conserve our creativity so we don’t use it up? Is it even possible to conserve it?
Sustainable creativity
I don’t believe creativity actually gets used up. It is like a good well that always seems to be full when we need it. If anything, creativity thrives on being challenged and used. It seems like the more we call on it, the more there is.
But is it sustainable? I think so, but we can be our own worst enemies. If we keep doing the same stuff over and over we get less creative. When we try to stay in a safe rut, there is less need to exercise creative. We’ve done it all. Many times. It is a major challenge to apply new creativity to repeating the same things.
Unless we are following the lead of where our creativity wants to take us, we risk getting stale. When that happens, we seriously fear we are not creative any more. And we are right.
That doesn’t mean our creativity is gone. But if we do not give it free rein to take us in new directions, it stops challenging us. For all practical purposes, our creativity is them used up.
Creativity is like a good friend. It will be there for us, but we have a responsibility to nurture the relationship. If we ignore it, if we do not make time for it, it will eventually give up on us.
Burnout
Everyone goes through cycles. Creativity, and everything else in life, can ebb and flow. That is natural. But burnout is an extreme. It is a depressed state where it can seem impossible to ever again do the quality of work we want to do. It can persist for months or years if we let it.
I know. I have been there. There was a time in my career when I worked long hours for years in a job that was not fulfilling. It caught up to me. I crashed. I pulled back, working less hours and not being as satisfied with the quality of my work. Eventually, by changing position and increasing the creativity of my role, I became productive and happy in my job again. It was probably a 3 year process.
In burnout, it seems evident that creativity must be unsustainable. That’s not true, though. It is not creativity that lets us down, it is the other parts of our context. It is important to manage our lives and environment if we want to stay creative.
Creative stimulus
Like an athlete trains constantly, we must exercise our creativity to stay on top of our game. Everyone’s needs are different, so it is impossible to lay out a plan for you to follow to do it. You have to figure that out for yourself.
I can provide some creative stimulants I have seen and used. Consider them. Try the ones that seem to fit you. Develop your own methods.
I will just bullet point some of them. Each could be a topic on it’s own.
Read. And not just the same old stuff. Read new things. Read things by people you disagree with. And also read some light stuff just for fun.
Study something new. Don’t plan to get a PhD in it. Just learn something about it. If you like it, go deeper. If not, try something else.
Write
Go back and review your old work. Put together a new portfolio.
Go to a museum.
Travel to a new place that is NOT a major iconic photo location.
Put blocks of time in your calendar to do nothing. Turn off your phone. Let your mind wander. Doodle. Look around. Intentionally be unproductive.
Spend time with friends, just living life.
Take your significant other out for a nice and unexpected meal.
Find things that make you happy, but that are not just entertainment. Try to do more of them.
Take walks, with and without your camera.
Just do it
The theme here is to fill your mind with new information. This connects in strange and unexpected ways, leading to who knows what. And to give yourself space and time to just think, ponder, consider, unwind. The more pressure we put ourselves under, the more it shuts down creativity.
And like the inspired Nike tag line, “just do it”. Get out and work. Take pictures, Don’t worry so much about the results. Going through the motions is comforting and leads to results. Eventually. Creativity is not just inspiration, it is a process.
Relax and try to de-clutter your head. Follow your instincts.
Is creativity sustainable? I would say definitely. It is one of the most important traits we have as artists. We can consciously take actions to keep our creativity healthy and flowing. But we have to listen to ourselves and recognize what our needs are.
June 19, 2024