A Year (plus) of Artist's Dates in the Bay & Beyond

The Artist's Date Series is my practice of combining two core ideas from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: going on a solo artist's date and writing regularly. Each week, I put something on my calendar for Saturday and go alone.

The act of choosing where to go helps me pay attention to what I actually want to see. And once I'm there, I start to notice what I actually feel. Writing about the experience afterward turns that attention into something I can understand and return to.

These became an official Art Monster practice because of what doing them forced me to challenge. I had to give up my idea of what family weekends were for — which was both a relief and a loss. I had to fail so much when I forgot to plan, or went to something that didn't inspire. I had to stop so much of my striving to be an accomplished adult just to make time to see who I was. And I had to face that maybe becoming would only become more of a process and not something I would ever fully achieve.

An interesting thing happened when I started doing these regularly. Other essays — most often ones about my daughter O. — started coming into my head fully formed.

The first time this happened I was in my living room looking at something she'd made, and I saw the whole thing: how the essay would start, how it would wander and where it would land. It was as if the voice inside me, once given space and attention, had grown its own intention. It felt like a miracle. I worked on one thing and another arrived.

It has taken more than one year to complete #52, but now this practice is a fixture in my life — something I don't go without. I hope reading these entries might open something up for you too.

What you can do with these stories:

01 Use them as inspiration to make your own calendar of things to see
02 Build a map of your city filled with places that spark something in you
03 Brainstorm your own list of favorite works, moments, and creative spaces
04 Remember that art and criticism are not exclusive to art critics
05 Understand that art and the body are not two separate things

Or just plain enjoy!

A few favorites

• Contemplating SFMOMA's Ruth Asawa exhibit
• Enjoying the hidden rooms of the de Young
• My first Artist's Date Postpartum
• A breakdown and breakthrough at the Sausalito Library

Others have mentioned loving when I write about a medical visit as an artist's date — because what is the purpose of them, really, but to discover where you can have more agency in places where you're told that you should just be a good girl.

While you're at it, go on and read them all.