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 backburner 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 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, ceramics—the list is long! They saw it as indecision, or as not following through, and I questioned that too.

Now I see it differently.

I wasn’t failing to follow through. I was following 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 sometimes put too much pressure on creativity to produce something. We want to know whether we’re going to be good at it before we begin. We want a finished product, a reason for doing it, or some evidence that our time was well spent.

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 on the joy of exploration, the satisfaction of trial and error, and the amazing feeling we had as a child of “look what I made!”

That is the kind of creative practice I am interested in now. For me, creative practice is less about producing finished work and more about exploration and expression.

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 responsibility, creativity gets pushed to the edges. 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.

Then one day, we may find ourselves with a little more time, but not quite sure what to do with it. This has been my own struggle.

So I am learning to make room.

Not perfectly, and not all at once. Just 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.

This is what my creative practice means to me.