Sheena Wilkie – The Practice

A practice is the repeated or regular carrying out of an activity or skill to develop, maintain or apply it. A creative practice is the ongoing process of exploring, developing and expressing ideas through observation, experimentation and making.

In hindsight, I realize I have been developing a creative practice my entire life.

As a child, colouring, painting, craft making, creating of any kind held a magical appeal for me. Working with my hands. Watching my mother bake and sew, knit, crochet, embroider and decoupage; she was always making something. Her busy hands were my delight. My father, a builder by nature, could make anything out of anything: toys, backyard ice rinks and swimming pools, tree houses and ziplines. Anything I could imagine, my parents could make.

My applied arts studies in high school and plans for art school were put on the back burner with marriage, parenthood and career. But that desire to create leaked out in everything I did: sewing my boys’ Halloween costumes, making handmade invitations, styling hair for the neighbourhood, and later, in my work for my communications clients.

There isn’t much me time when you’re a busy parent juggling a career and family. Whatever that me time might be. And just finding the time to think about how to find the time can feel impossible, no matter how many self-help books we read or podcasts we listen to.

That’s how it was with me. My family used to tease me about how many “hobbies” I took up: jewellery making, oil painting, floral decorating, lino cutting, printmaking, doll making, ceramics, the list is long! They saw it as indecision, or as not following through, and I questioned that too.

Looking back, I see it differently. I wasn’t failing to follow through. I was following my curiosity.

What I once saw as a collection of unfinished interests, I now see as creative exploration. Trying something new wasn’t a waste of time or a weakness. It was a way of learning about materials, about making, and about myself.

I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to produce something outstanding. We want to know whether we’re going to be good at it before we even begin. We want a finished product, a reason for doing it, or some evidence that our time was well spent.

But hey, think about it: what if we didn’t?

What if we could try something simply because we’re curious? What if we could be beginners again? What if an afternoon spent making something that never becomes a finished piece is still an afternoon well spent?

What if we worried less about approval, social media likes, awards and recognition, and focused more on the joy of exploration, the satisfaction of trial and error, and that amazing feeling we had as children of “look what I made!” Or the simple pleasure of being alone with our thoughts and some beautiful shapes and colours.

I have come to see creative practice as a way of slowing down and paying attention, a quiet space for contemplation, reflection and discovery. The act of looking closely, making something with my hands, or simply following an idea can become a kind of meditation. For me, it is also an expression of my faith.

I don’t think creativity has to be useful to be meaningful. Sometimes its value is simply in the attention we give to the moment, the questions it opens up, and what we discover about ourselves along the way.

That is the kind of creative practice I am interested in now. It is less about producing finished work and more about exploration, expression and making room for possibility.

But exploration requires something we don’t always have: room.

Room in our schedules. Room in our homes. Room in our heads. Room to be distracted by an idea, to follow it for a while, to make something that may not lead anywhere.

For many of us, through the busy years of work, family and responsibilities, creativity gets pushed to the edges or right off the table. We raise children, build careers, care for aging parents, make room for grandchildren, and sometimes navigate health challenges of our own. These experiences can bring enormous love, meaning and joy, but they also ask for our time and attention. Somewhere among all the caring, organizing and giving, our own creative lives can become very quiet.

So I am learning to make room. Although, frankly, finding that room is a daily struggle. I’m not finding it perfectly, or all at once. I’m simply trying to find enough space to look closely, follow an idea, try something new and see where it leads.

Sometimes that means picking up a camera. Sometimes a pencil, a paintbrush, a needle or a piece of clay. Sometimes it means writing something down or simply paying attention to what catches my eye.

I don’t need every experiment to become something. I just need to keep showing up.

To look. To notice. To wonder. To make.

For me, that is the heart of creative practice. It is not only about what I make, but about how I learn to see, and how making space for creativity can help me become more present to the world, to myself and to the quiet possibilities that are in me and around me.

This is what my creative practice means to me.