the art of releasing

sharing creative projects with the world.

Yesterday in a session call about an entirely different creative project (more on that soon), I was asked what I was most excited for about releasing my first full length spoken word album this month.

I shared that honestly I am ready for the project to release me versus the other way around.

In Rick Rubin’s book, “The Creative Act” (which I have been DEVOURING over the last few months, he talks a lot about the process of releasing a project. 

He talks about the artist hoarder mentality we can occasionally have because we get so afraid that our next work won’t be our best work. Or the crippling fear that it’s not perfect, year after year, waiting until “the right time” to release. To all of which he says,

“Hanging on to your work is like spending years writing the same entry in a diary. Moments and opportunities are lost. The next works are robbed of being brought to life.”

Or how so much of the creation process is a beautiful and worthwhile one but putting it out, even if it’s in the ether of your own corner of the world, is also part of the process. He says, “One of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to share it. Even if there is no audience to receive it, we build the muscle of making something and putting it out into the world.” 

Unlike maybe most artists, I love the releasing process. I love declaring something “complete” enough to be shared. Is it always “finished” i think there’s too much finite permanence when it comes to something being “finished”, it’s not an empty plate, there’s still more to be enjoyed, tasted, experienced so it’s never really finished. But it’s complete when you feel it is. When you’ve exhausted all your notes not stepped in ego, fear or perfectionism. I think creative projects have an exhale and “the unfolding” journey as it lives and breathes in this moment is getting ready to be released.

In her autobiography, Cicely Tyson shared how her art and her life was a constant chance to explore. One quote that I think about often is one where she says, 

“To examine, to question, to discover and evolve that is what it means to be alive. The day we cease to explore is the day we begin to wilt.” 

So therefore the art we make can’t really be perfect or the best work yet because each one exists entirely in its own space and time. Curated by a version of ourselves that may no longer exist. I feel like an entirely different person since writing and releasing my book “The Unfolding” a year and some change ago. Hence, this next project “The Art of Unfolding” because this version of me still has somethings left to say about all this growth and blooming process of living.

Perhaps we would be less afraid as artists if we reframe our thinking of “the best work” Because whatever we release with those perspectives, ideas, experiences, for that self it IS the best work. And the same goes for the future self, whatever they create will be their best work. Whatever that even means. Because to me, the best work I could create speaks to who I am in that moment and the world around me. Speaks to the hope and the possibility of a future that we may not be able to see. A love note to whatever version of that person is experiencing and engaging with it. 

I never want to be so precious with my personhood or artistry that I don’t allow space to evolve and be something new.

Though I’m excited to release this project, I am mostly excited for this album to release me. I am such a project to project creative. My whole ether and brain space can’t help but pour it all into one, take time, restore and then see what begs to be released next.

I’m so excited for it to be out, to have you all experience and engage with it in a way that resonates deeply with who and where you are in this moment. I’m excited for me to release into whatever’s next, even if “next” is creative rest. Though I feel very grounded and charged in creatively in this season and I will respond and move accordingly in that space in every way I can because my God as long as i’m here, I want to create and do it purposefully, intentionally and wholeheartedly.