Artist Date 是你每周留给自己的一段或两段时间，用来为自己提供创造的养分。在这段属于自己的时间里，你可以抛弃一切身份、责任，不用关心应该做什么，而只是找你觉得有意思的事情来做。从这种活动中，我们将逐渐培养自己敢于尝试一些有点冒险、但会增长自己的见识和艺术敏感度的事情。

如何进行 Artist Date呢？Julia 给了如下的建议，她形象地将Artist date 比喻成给你的创造力源泉加油的过程——Filling the well。你可以根据个人的喜好安排自己的 Artist Date。

Filling the well involves the active pursuit of images to refresh our artistic reservoirs. Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details (for instance, the excruciatingly beautiful curve of a lost lover’s neck).

我们需要在 Artist date 中尽量获取形象的感官体验，这种体验会丰富我们内在的艺术性储备。
艺术源于注意。细节是艺术的创作源泉。有些人认为艺术来源于痛苦，但也许是因为痛苦让
我们注意到细节。（例如，失恋的痛苦让我们注意到曾经的恋人绝美的颈部曲线。）

The language of art is image, symbol. It is a wordless language even when our very art is to chase it with words. The artist’s language is a sensual one, a language of felt experience.
The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch.

艺术的语言是形象的、符号化的。它不借助任何词语。 艺术的语言是感官性质的，用于表达我们的感受。
艺术性的右脑是感受性的：视觉感受和声音、气味和味道，触觉等等。

In filling the well, follow your sense of the mysterious, not your sense of what you should know more about.
Some sounds lull us. Others stimulate us. Ten minutes of listening to a great piece of music can be a very effective meditation.

在进行 Artist date 的时候，你应该尽量感受神秘性，而不要强求自己要了解更多。有的声音使我们
平静，而有的声音则使我们振奋。听10分钟好听的音乐相当于很有效的冥想训练。

Filling the well needn’t be all novelty. Cooking can fill the well. When we chop and pare vegetables, we do so with our thoughts as well. Remember, art is an artist-brain pursuit. This brain is reached through rhythm—through rhyme, not reason. Scraping a carrot, peeling an apple—these actions are quite literally food for thought.

你不一定非得做特别新奇的事情。下厨做饭一样会启发你的创造力。切菜或者削皮的时候，我们也会
进行思考。艺术源于右脑。通过节奏、而非理性，才能启动右脑模式。刮胡萝卜，削苹果——这些
行为都可以丰富右脑思维。

Any regular, repetitive action primes the well. Writers have heard many woeful tales of the Brontë sisters and poor Jane Austen, forced to hide their stories under their needlework.

任何有规律的、重复性的行为都会激活右脑模式。很多作家都听说过关于勃朗特姐妹和可怜的简奥斯汀
的八卦，说她们不得不将小说藏到针线活底下。

Brain research now tells us that this is because showering is an artist-brain activity.
Showering, swimming, scrubbing, shaving, steering a car—so many s-like-yes words!—all of these arc regular, repetitive activities that may tip us over from our logic brain into our more creative artist brain. Solutions to sticky creative problems may bubble up through the dishwater, emerge on the freeway just as we arc executing a tricky merge, …

近来的脑神经研究表明，洗澡的时候，我们启动的是右脑模式。淋浴、游泳、擦洗、刮脸、开车——这么
多S 开头的活动都是有规律的、重复性的活动。它们都能够将我们的大脑从左脑模式切换成更具创造性
的右脑模式。由于我们反射弧的复杂交错，使得我们能够从洗碗这类活动中获得创造力……

摘录来自: Julia Cameron. “The Artist’s Way”。 iBooks.

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