Lawyers need creative hobbies! Guest: Karen Dunn Skinner

Today, we're talking about something different. Creative hobbies and the benefits they can bring to lawyers and other professionals. 

What do you do when you finally have some quiet time, after a long and stressful day of lawyering? For many, the answer includes some mindless scrolling, binge-watching, going for a run or diving into a great book. And sometimes that can be exactly what we need to give our minds and bodies a break. But other times, it leaves us lacking. We need something that goes beyond helping us slow down and, instead, actually fills our cup back up. 

Well, in this podcast, Karen and I talk about how a creative hobby can be that something that inspires and energizes you every day, even on days when you feel drained or depleted. 

In this episode, we share stories and ideas from our own experiences of leaning into art, including getting started, keeping it going, fitting it into a busy life, taking it with you wherever you go and overcoming fears of the blank page. We even suggest some specific ideas to try if this is all a bit new to you. 

Despite what our teachers or society may have taught or told us over the years, we're all creative. You can do this. You might even love it. 

To learn more about Karen Dunn Skinner, please go to https://www.leanlegal.academy/.

You're listening to Get in the Driver’s Seat! We’re telling stories about leadership moments in small to mid-sized professional practices. I’m your host, Sandra Bekhor, Practice Management Coach for lawyers, architects, consultants and other professionals at Bekhor Management.

Transcript

I'm Sandra, hello and welcome to the podcast. This is Get in the driver's seat. We're telling stories about leadership moments in professional practice. I'm your host, Sandra Bekhor, Practice Management Coach at Bekhor Management. Today, we're talking about something different. Creative hobbies and the benefits they can potentially bring to lawyers and other professionals. And I'm excited to introduce Karen Dunn Skinner, a pioneer in legal process improvement. After more than 20 years as a lawyer, she coaches legal professionals around the world to be as great at running their businesses as they are at practicing law. She's a global advisor to the International Institute of legal Project Management, and she's being inducted into the College of Law Practice Management. Welcome Karen.

Thank you so much for having me. I feel like we've been talking about doing this particular podcast or something related to it for a long time, I think, since that OBA conference back in Deerhurst, like a year and a half ago. So I'm really excited to be here.

Yes, exactly. And I was also reflecting back on when we first started talking about this. So it was at that conference, and shortly after, we discovered that we're both watercolour artists, in addition to being consultants and coaches.

I even have that on my Instagram now that I'm like a watercolour artist and law firm consultant, which is I would have thought a relatively unique combination, and yet, here we are both the same. We found each other.

So before we jump into all things art, Karen, let's talk about your new book. 

Oh, great. Yeah, so good. I'm glad you got your copy. I usually have a Zoom background that shows the book, but of course, we're in our studios today, so it's a little bit different. I have a more artistic background than my usual one. But yeah, so, oh gosh. About a year ago, my partner and I decided that, you know, we had been talking about lawyers getting in their power zones and this whole idea of finding ways to do more of the work you're uniquely qualified to do the work that you love and the work that adds the most value to your firm, and we've been talking about this in the context of delegating, because, you know, most of our clients, many of our clients, are small law firm owners or lawyers in smaller practice groups, and for them, they're doing all the things all the time. They're doing all the admin, they're doing all the billing, they're doing everything, and they're trying to practice law. And those admin things they might be good at, but they're not what we call the Power Zone. They're not where those lawyers are happiest, and they're not where they are really adding the most value to their firm. So we put the book together as a sort of step by step guide for people to walk them through how to identify why you want to make changes in your practice, because your why is really what drives you. That's how the book starts. Why do you want to change the way your practice works? And then how do you identify your Power Zone? There are exercises around that, and also thinking about what other things you want to do in your life. Because the practice of law can be a real grind for a lot of people. And what we wanted people to think about is, what would they do, what would they focus on? What would they have time for if they didn't have to do all that grinding work? And the book talks about how to do that, and how to choose what you want to work on, how to delegate the rest effectively, and then how to streamline what you do. And we're, I mean, we're excited. The book's done really well. People love it. It's got some great reviews. So, yeah, it's, it's been a really fun project.

Well, you're sort of leading the way by your life. You actually live this stuff.

We do, and, you know, we were really intentional in the way that we designed our business. We know exactly who we want to work for. I mean, both of us have this big sticky note in our office, and just so that everyone is totally clear, my business partner is also my life partner. I've been married to David for 33 years, so a long time that we've been together, and we've been doing this business together for about 12 and we have this sticky in our office, this big sticky note that says we've never met an unhappy ex lawyer, and that's just so sad. You know, both of us practiced law for a long time, and we met so many people who were just miserable, and we don't want lawyers to be miserable. We want them to be doing work that they love. And so many of them say, you know, I love my clients, I love my practice, but my practice is breaking me. And we decided there just had to be a different way to do that. And we looked at how we'd set up our own life, which is, we've built this business. We're working with the people we most like to work with, our ideal clients. And we have time. We have gotten ourselves out of the grind, and it took a while. You know, when anybody starts their own business, you do, you know, a lot of bootstrapping. You do a lot of the work, the grinding work, and we see our lawyer clients doing it all the time. And as business owners, we were too, and we thought this is not how we want our lives to be. We didn't start the business to be chained to our desks. We want the life we want. So we built a practice that allows us to do the work we love the most. So we are in our power zones as much as we possibly can be, and we delegate everything else. We have assistance, we have automated systems, and all of that gives us time to do the things that are important to us. So for me, it's my art, and it's things that I do with our family. And for David, he gives an enormous amount back to his community, and that takes time, so he does a lot of volunteer work. He's a ski patroller at Tremblant, where we ski. He's, in addition to being a ski patroller, he's also a member of a rescue unit and a search and rescue organization here in Point Claire, so we've designed our lives to give ourselves the time to do the things that are important to us, because we both believe, and that's what you and I are going to be talking about today, but we both believe that it is really important for the services that we deliver, that we also have time to kind of regenerate and recharge ourselves by doing these things that are unrelated but that fill us with joy.

I love how you tied those together in that last part of you know what you just said? Because it's not like, oh, okay, I'll go and do this other thing that I enjoy. And, you know, good, I got this selfish time for me. No? Because whatever you do in that time that you enjoyed, it fuels the other time. When you're at work, they're not separate. 

Yeah, they're not and there's some really interesting research that's been done on sort of the link between productivity and creativity, and it kind of comes down on both sides. I'm just trying to find the article. So there are some people who really feel like creativity, if you're really being creative, you're not being productive. And I think they kind of overlap, or maybe they conflate the timing of those things. I think you can be very productive and be creative at the same time. But I also think giving yourself time to do these stress relieving activities, the creative activities, or just the personal things that give you that kind of joy, they give you the energy that you need to focus on work. When you have to focus on work.

Does that make sense? Totally and a great segue into our into our discussion. Okay, so from the top, why are we talking to lawyers and other professionals about having a creative practice?

I think our profession, and it's probably true of others as well, but this is the profession that I know and that I've been in for such a long time. Our profession can be very stressful, and not only are people doing work that is inherently taxing, that requires not so much physical but very mentally taxing work. It's also, for many lawyers in their practices very emotionally taxing. There are lots of issues of mental health in law, and we're not going to get into all of that today, but mental health is a part of it. Right? People are very stressed. They're doing hard work. They're often working very long hours. And you know, you and I are of the same vintage, and we kind of, grew up as lawyers, expecting that we were going to work really hard and that we were going to have these really high billable hour targets and there isn't, there wasn't time to focus on ourselves and yet, like I said earlier, like if you don't recharge your batteries, your emotional batteries, your physical batteries, your creative batteries, if you can't recharge yourself, then you're not able to deliver the service that you should be delivering. So for us, you know, it's a way to relieve stress. So developing some kind of creative practice no matter what it is, whether it's doodling or gardening or baking or writing or just putting stuff down in your journal, like having some kind of creative practice for professionals, allows your brain to focus on other things. So as an example, I mean, I do my art. You do your art. My son bought himself a guitar, and he's learning to play guitar on his post call days. He's an ER doctor in Kingston. The guitar requires him to focus his brain very differently than he does in the ER and on something that's so totally different than his daily work that it's kind of like a tonic for his brain. And that's how I feel about my painting. I mean, we may talk about this again later, but for me, there are very few things that I do that quiet my brain. My brain goes really fast, and there aren't very many things that really put me in a space where I can just focus on one thing. Painting is one of those things. And I think it's important for people to find an outlet that allows their brain to function in a different way, because it it's relaxing, and we need that.

Yeah? I mean, that's kind of another way of approaching mindfulness, the way you described it, because it's putting your mind on one task, which is very calming for the nervous system. 

Yeah, I haven't done a lot of research or reading on mindfulness, but I started to look at a lot more of this idea of flow, which I think is related. And again, like you say, it's really this sense of being able to focus on one thing. And, you know, with art, and you do watercolour as well, one of the things that I think is interesting about watercolour is a choice of medium, is that you have to give up some control, because the pigment, goes kind of where it wants to go, and it flows, and it does not always behave the way you think it's going to behave. There's an interaction between the water and the pigment and the paper and the air, and, you know, the angle and gravity. There's so much going on that you have to just relinquish some control, which is important, which is hard for me. So it helps me to just focus on the painting and let the pigment flow. So that's good. And I guess that is being mindful in that I'm just quietly watching the paint, which sounds really sad, like, well, I'm watching paint dry, but it's not watching it dry, it's watching it move and evolve and change. So that helps me to kind of slow down my brain. Plus you have to wait for it to dry. You can't rush it. And that is a huge like, a mental leap for me to just wait for things to happen and quietly watch and think and plan what the next stage of the painting is going to be. What about you? I mean you, you also do watercolour. How does it affect you?

Yeah, and thanks for asking Karen. I guess we're interviewing each other this time because we're having similar experiences. So for me, you know, I guess it's allowing myself to embrace what's really going on. For me, I would describe it a little bit differently from your experience. So whatever it is that I'm experiencing in life, you know, I might be approaching a meeting that's giving me, you know, some reason to doubt myself, or feeling nervous about having a difficult conversation with a client, or getting ready for a big speaking engagement, whatever it is I've got some nervousness inside me. Could be a family thing that's distracting me from work, whatever it is that's going on with me, what I find is when I enter my art space, I can be more honest about whatever it is that's really going on. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and in a way that almost words don't do it justice, like if I put a marker in my hand and literally just cathartic, like, express it all over the page. Sometimes if I'm having very strong feelings, it will look like vandalism, like my drawing, and then I look at it, I'm like, well, that's kind of scary. I'm not going to show that to anybody, because it'll scare them. But actually, now I feel better. You know, it's like something came out of me and I expressed myself. And I'll have, you know, different experiences where I'll have a very, you know, sort of intuitive drawing when I'm not sure about how I'm feeling before going into a big event. And then I look at the drawing and I'm, like, kind of thrown by how bold it looks, and I realize the confidence that was under the surface. So I have all these experiences in my art space that then I go and bring a stronger me into whatever is happening in my workspace.

That's a really interesting way to think about it, that it gives you strength.

And self acceptance, you know, and I mean everything that you said I find relatable as well, right? Just stopping that racing mind, and allow it to go into a different space, which is honestly where you find your answers. So if you think about lawyers and other professionals like, why are we talking about this? You know, if you're struggling with, what's the best answer for my client's problem, how do I approach this thing in court? How do I talk to my employee about this thing I'm not happy with? If you just keep focusing on that question, you know, at some point you're going to just run into a wall and you're just going to stress yourself out, and you won't sleep at night, and you're not going to do a great job with that answer. 

Yeah. 

If you have a creative practice in place that you can actually go to on a regular basis and park those thoughts, let them just sort of marinate while you move your brain into a more creative, you know, happy space. You might be surprised that in the morning you actually have a better answer to your question.

I think that happens to a lot of people in many ways. Sometimes just sleep, as we say, you know, oh, I'm going to sleep on it. But what's interesting about creativity is that it engages multiple areas of your brain in a way that just ruminating on a single question or sitting in front of your computer doesn't do and it also engages the prefrontal cortex, which is a part of your brain that's involved in kind of analyzing and thinking through complex issues and problem solving. So surprisingly, this part of your brain, from everything that I've read about creativity, is actually most active when you're at rest, which is why you solve problems overnight when you sleep on it, but also, you know, when you're daydreaming and when you're engaging in some sort of creative pursuits. So you actually put yourself, put your brain in a position where it's more capable of coming up with new ideas, of coming up with innovative solutions to the problems. And I think it's really important to keep in mind. It also, you know, increases the dopamine that we have, which feels good, and it gives more motivation. It actually helps you to focus, which is, I think one thing behind how you can just kind of get into the zone, right? Because you've got the dopamine and you've engaged these multiple areas of your brain, and you're really focused and in the zone on a painting or anything, or, you know, the doodle that you're doing, or your garden, whatever it is that you do as your creative pursuit, engaging in it allows you to focus in a very different way than you might otherwise focus at work. And I think, that's why it's important for people to think about creativity. But I don't know about your experience. But when I talk to people about, you know, oh, I've started painting or, oh, I'm, you know, I'm gonna paint this afternoon, almost invariably, adults will say, oh, I can't do anything creative.

Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. Karen, okay, sorry. Go on.

And I think that's so wrong, because first of all, you can learn anything, and what you consider to be art, like somebody might look at my trees. I paint a lot of trees, they might look at them and go, Oh, my G-d, they're horrible. And that's okay, because I'm not painting them for other people. And also, like we tell children that their art is amazing, right? And everybody sticks their kids’ stuff up on the fridge, or sends the art off to the aunt or the uncle or whatever. And we all tell the kids they're great. And then they get to a certain age, and then somehow everybody internalizes that their art is crap, and it's really sad, and they stop drawing, or they stop writing, or they stop, you know, whatever they do. And, I think you can be creative in so many ways, even just doodling. You know, a lot of people are like, Oh, I'm not artistic at all. But if you looked at their notepad beside their desk, they're doodling all the time, and that's a form of creativity, and that helps. In fact, they show a lot of studies show that if you're doodling, people think you're distracted, but actually the doodling helps you focus on the conversation that you're actually having, which I find fascinating. So I think anybody can do it, and your art doesn't have to be fantastic. It doesn't have to be representative. It doesn't have to look like a tree, or a frog or whatever. It's very personal, and I makes me sad when people say, Oh, I couldn't possibly do that, because I think they're wrong. I think anybody can do it. You just have to have a different expectation. It's not like every piece that you write, that you do, is going to be, you know, worthy of being in a museum or sold in a sale. It's just art.

Yes. And you know, I'm going to share a little story about the past couple of months. I broke my wrist. I fractured my wrist on New Year's Day, Happy New Year. And so I've been in a cast for about six weeks, and now I'm doing physio on my arm. So when this first happened, I thought to myself, Okay, and you know, my right hand is my dominant hand, so I thought to myself, well, I don't want to spend six weeks of no art. That's not happening. So I decided right from the beginning, I'm going to do art with my left hand. And the most interesting thing happened when I started doing art with my left hand. That inner voice, which has given me much pain over the years, of, like, you know exactly what you were just talking about, Karen, the, you know, the voice of, oh, you're not an artist. Oh, you can't do this. And, you know, give it up, or all those things like non-stop, relentless. When I started painting with my left hand, that voice was quiet. 

Yeah, because your brain was going, oh my gosh, I can make a mark on a paper with my left hand. Like the expectation is so low, that voice was like, Go, girl.

That's exactly what happened. And it didn't change. So for like two months, I did art with my left hand, and that inner voice was like, Oh, I don't know what to make of this. And then I actually acknowledged that everything I did with my left hand was art. There was not one single thing that I did that I didn't consider to be art. And it's exactly what you just talked about, Karen. It's because if you express yourself doodling, or, you know, some catharsis, or throw paint at a paper, or do hand painting like kids do, doesn't matter what you're doing, it's art.

Yep, yep. And I remember being in the MoMA in New York with our son when he was about six or seven, maybe. So he was quite young, and we were looking at these different modern art exhibitions and you know, some of the stuff is, you know, a rope hanging from the ceiling, or a chair on an angle, or a blank sheet of paper, or a canvas, in just all one color. And, we were talking about what makes art? And he was like, you know, six or seven, so he's still at that, you know, finger painting, stage and whatever. And, I was saying, you know, anything can be art. It's just an expression of something that makes people think. And so it doesn't have to be fabulous, it doesn't have to be like I said, doesn't have to look like a tree to be art. Artists just, create you know, a visual image that makes people think about something. And then he was standing beside this odd exhibit that was like a gray rope hanging from a tree and a chair hanging from the ceiling and a chair on an angle. And it was kind of strange. And people were coming up to it and going, what's that? And he would say, It's art. Art doesn't have to look like anything. Art is just something that makes you think. It was like all these adults were going, Oh, yeah. And I think that's it. Whether you're making it or you're looking at it, it's just making you think and that's all it needs to do.

It's an expression of truth. And sometimes it's easier for us to understand that truth through a visual. Yeah, even if it's abstract, even if we don't know what we're looking at, we feel something.

Yeah. I think that's true, and it does make people feel things. I don't know if you've had this experience, but definitely. I do sell my paintings and one of the hardest things for me, because I'm a lawyer and I'm a perfectionist, and I have, you know, strange lawyer brain. Sometimes I have a really hard time not seeing the flaws in my own work. So people will say, I really like that tree, or I really like that landscape or that ski hill, because I do a lot of snow paintings in the winter and a huge effort for me has to go into just saying thank you, not thank you but did you notice that the perspective is slightly wrong or thank you but I'm not happy with the color there. Like for me to stop at thank you takes an enormous effort. But a friend of mine said, you know when you when somebody compliments your art, or when somebody wants to buy something, and you immediately tell them what's wrong with it, you're actually ruining it for them. They don't see that. They see something that they love. And when you say, Yeah, but this is wrong, then you're undermining their perception of what they like and don't like, and their perception of what's beautiful. So you're actually imposing your view on them. And people see very different things. I sold one painting, and I kind of had included it in the selection that I was offering to a client. But I don't know even how it got in there, because it was one I really didn't like. He’d sent me some pictures of things that he was interested in, and I had sent him a whole bunch of different trees. I do a lot of trees. You can see some in the background. I do these birch trees and he chose the one that I thought had the most flaws because of the way the branches crossed, and I didn't like the way the branches crossed. But I just said, thank you. And he bought the painting, and he sent me a picture of it framed, and he said, I love it so much. The way the branches cross the trees are like a couple, so beautiful. 

And so he had seen these trees embracing each other, whereas I'd seen a mistake. And I was like, You know what? I'm never going to tell people what I think is wrong with their paintings again, or my paintings, again, because they see things so differently than what I see, and that, I think, is part of the beauty of creativity as well. People see completely different things in whatever it is that you produce, whether it's your doodle or your garden or the way you decorate a cake or whatever it may be.

Yes, and this idea of letting go of that perfectionist or analytical nature. I have a story about that too. So I went on an art retreat for a couple of days in Killarney. It was so beautiful, where the Group of Seven painted, and we're sitting on this cliff, you know? I just honestly, it was so beautiful over a river, and painting for two days straight, and I had the teacher sort of instructing me, you know, for this painting, for most of it. And I felt a little bit, I don't know, constrained, you know, I was trying to get it right, and I kept asking him, you know, is this looking right? At the end of the weekend, I decided, You know what, I'm just going to go for a little bit of walk. I threw a couple of markers and some water into my backpack, and I went, you know, climbing on the rock. I sat myself down, and I thought, I feel like doing another painting. So I literally grabbed my markers and my water, and I just, in five minutes, scribbled something out and threw water at the markers like I put things together that didn't go together. And guess which one went on our wall? Yeah, it was the second one, right which I threw together in five minutes, not the one that I did painstakingly over the whole weekend with instruction.

Yeah, because that was you, that was you on the paper. And that's, what I think is so interesting about having a creative practice, and mine has really evolved over time. I'm looking behind the screen right now because I have a few different things up on the wall and I used to do more, like botanical watercolors, so very precise, like irises or flowers, like, really, really precise, which I can get into, like, it will suck me into that same kind of flow. But it doesn't give me as much joy anymore to paint like that, because I feel like that was stuff that I did in a class with instruction, and there's not as much of me on the paper, and I can completely see the freedom of saying, okay, you know, I've internalized all the things this painter told me. You know, you've internalized it. But then you take the Sandra approach and you do the Sandra version, and the Sandra version is you. That's where your emotion is, that's where your passion is and that is so powerful to be able to kind of let go completely and just do your own thing, and you're still like you've learned. You learned a ton, probably listening to all that instruction from that teacher, but you put it on the paper in your own way. Yeah.

And that's the energy, that's where the exciting energy comes along. Yeah, alive. And it's a very interesting experience to realize I can look at that painting and find technical problems with it, and it doesn't matter, it's still stronger. Yeah.

I have one like that on my wallet, and it's not even watercolor, it's an ink, I would pour and move. And that painting is probably one of my favorite paintings. It's one I've done a couple years ago, and it's of the Outer Banks, but it's not, you know, technically correct. It's not precise. You wouldn't even necessarily know what it was. But to me, that just speaks to me. And again, it was because there was energy and I was there, it takes me right back. And there aren't that many things that do that, I think, for me, and I think it's probably true for most people, there aren't that many things that we do really give us an escape.

And so the thing is that we bring ourselves to everything that we do. If I have this experience where I learned through doing these two paintings that doing the perfect version isn't better. Doing the me version is actually stronger and resonates better with other people, not just with me, I now take that, me back into the workspace, and now I'm not as focused on being perfect. I'm more focused on being stronger, authentically.

And expressing you like, yes. And what we do as lawyers is help clients achieve a transformation of some sort, whether they're going from, you know, being in a trapped, unhappy relationship, to, you know, having a fresh start as a transformation, or when they want to go from being a business owner to, you know, someone who sold their business or retired doesn't matter. We're providing transformations for our clients. And I think if we can bring to that, this idea that their transformation doesn't have to be perfect. Their transformation doesn't have to be, you know, absolutely precise every time that what we're helping them do is get to that transformation and you can actually achieve it in a lot of different ways. It doesn't have to follow this same precise path to achieve the transformation. That is really what we are delivering to our clients.

Oh, I love how you tied that back to a practical reality of lawyers. So okay, another practical reality here. Because some people who are watching this may think, Okay, well, that's all well and good, but I'm busy. I can't fit this in. So let's talk about how both of us, with our busy lives, fit this in. 

So I think, just like everything, I think there's a season for things, and so sometimes I have more time, and my ability to dedicate time to painting, kind of ebbs and flows right now, because of the season that I'm in with work and travel, and in the winter, we do go back and forth between this house in town and a small condo up at Tremblant where David ski patrols. You know, we're going back and forth. So one of the things that I've learned to do is just give myself the space to do that. So I would love to say I'll paint every single day, and I just, I don't, I paint a lot more on the weekends. Now, my big easel, which you can't really see, but it's here, I can't schlep that back and forth so that that lives here, and it has a painting on it that I will get to the next time I'm home long enough to do that, but I think you just have to be practical about it. I have a little sketchbook. I have a little portable that I can take around with me. And I do go back and forth. I take art with me, or take the tools with me most places. But I've learned not to beat myself up about it. If there are days when I just can't get to it, I can't. I don't know if you've ever done this, but once a year or so, I try to give myself a bit of a challenge. And last year I did, I challenged myself to paint or draw something. Didn't matter for how long, but something every day for 100 days, and I posted pictures, and I sometimes got a whole painting done. Sometimes I got, you know, one single layer of paint on something, but I just tried to put some paint on paper every time I walked by where I was set up. At that point, I didn't have a studio. I was in my dining room, and that was great. I learned an enormous amount. I progressed rapidly, and I'll probably do the same again this year, but I have to wait for the right season to even begin. You know, because I'm just moving around a fair bit, and it can be challenging. So it's important to me. So I’ll definitely schedule time for it, but I can't schedule time every day, and I've just decided that's okay. I used to feel bad about that, but I've decided it's okay. And so when I have longer periods of time, I take them and I paint. Yeah.

Sorry, yeah. For me, what I've learned is that I don't need a big block of time. I mean, if I have a big block of time to do art and I'm in the mood to do art, you know, sometimes that's exactly what I need. But most of the time having just a little bit of time is actually exactly what I need. So if I think, oh, you know, I only have half an hour, and then I have to make dinner or whatever it is, but actually that half an hour might be exactly enough to start a painting or to add another layer the way you described it. And the truth is, I actually enjoy, as an artist, I enjoy having multiple paintings going at the same time, so I'll have three or four, and it helps me to not go too far with one painting before I'm ready to decide what the next thing is. So if I only have half an hour, okay, I'll maybe do five minutes on that, 10 minutes on that one, and just, you know, maybe get myself set up for the next thing. 

Yeah. I think that's right. It's not thinking you have to dedicate half a day to something, but just that little bit. And when I was doing that 100 day challenge, often it was literally 10 minutes as I walk from, you know, the coffee maker to the office and I would just throw a little bit more paint on something, or I would just draw a corner of something and, and that's fine, because the reason for doing it isn't to create a full painting. Isn't to create something big. It's to give my brain a break. And sometimes it just needs 10 minutes.

Yeah, and then after that 10 minutes, you go back so refreshed.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I find even just sort of thinking about it, sometimes I sit down to paint and I spend quite a lot of time just thinking about what I'm going to do next. And some people think, Oh G-d, you know, what am I going to do? What am I going to put on paper? And some people are kind of intimidated by the white page. But I actually really like the thinking part, the planning, the looking at different photos to decide what I'm kind of inspired by, or often I’ll go for a ski in the morning, and then I'll paint in the afternoon.

I just like the thinking about it.

And you know, that's interesting, because how do you overcome that fear of the blank page? Is probably one of the ways that people will stop themselves from even trying. So it sounds to me like you're going out in nature, your happy space, and you're getting inspired by the visual. The trees really inspire you.

Yeah, and I often come back and like I said, I will stare at that white page for a really long time before I put anything on it. And if I'm really struggling, then there's so much out there right now, of like quick YouTube lessons on all kinds of different things. So if I'm really struggling about what I want to do, and I know that I want to do some art, but I just can't think, because sometimes I'm tired and sometimes, you know, that's just like, one decision too many, I'll just turn on a video and paint along with the instructor, because then I don't have to make any decisions. I don't even have to pick the colors. I just, you know, follow along, do what they do, and that's often enough to get me past that kind of block. But again, because I enjoy the thinking about it, I'm not so intimidated maybe by the white pages, because just thinking about what I'm going to do is also fun and relaxing for me. What about you? What do you do when you have a blank page and you're not sure where to go next?

Um, so you know that has changed for me over the years. I used to be more into landscape, and trees are still very inspiring to me too, Karen, but I'm more moving into abstract and intuitive art. So I guess what I do changes over time. So I go through phases. At one point I was learning all about mandalas, so that's concentric circles. And Mandelas can be very structured. So you're literally using compass and drawing it that way, or they can be very free. And then I learned all about collage. So I go into a collage period, and then I went into zentangles. And zentangles are basically, you know, doing a free hand little doodle, and then filling the doodle with little patterns, which you learn about. I followed a book and I did a Zentangle a day. I don't remember how many days, but it's like that challenge that you were talking about you gave yourself. And you know, each time I did learn something new, it just filled me with inspiration that I would go off and use in some other way. And then I started combining all these things. So looking at the blank page can be stressful for me. I do actually feel that creative block. But then when I turn towards something new, or even a new supply, like my sister sent me these markers that are watercolor based. So I start writing with a marker, and then I throw water at it. Oh, this is a whole new way of using watercolors, and that will inspire me and set me off in a new direction. 

Yeah, I'm actually getting quite excited about doing some acrylics. I've only really ever done watercolor and drawing, and I think changing medium will give me the opportunity to do something completely different. And I'm quite excited about that. It just lets me think about things in a different way. 

I think the medium actually is an interesting part of the inspiration. So, you know, inviting myself into that sense of play. If you look around this space here, you'll see a lot of things are very kid like. So I like art capital A, but I also like art with small a. I've got crayons, I've got pastels, every kind of pastel, and so some of it is just to remind myself to just play.

Yeah, I look at my palettes, because I've got some on the table. And I actually really like my palettes. I like the colors. I like just like being surrounded by really messy palettes and bright colours. Yeah, and my niece is also an artist. I couple of my nieces are artists. Actually, the one I'm thinking of, she does watercolor and a lot of other things, and she uses paper towel, like we all often do, to sort of soak up the sides of things. So she'll do something, and she'll press the watercolor on the paper towel on her painting, to kind of pull some of the color off. Or she'll test some colors on the paper towel beside her. She keeps the paper towel. I don't know if she's doing collage with it or what, but she keeps a lot of it because she loves the way the paint just looks on a piece of paper towel. So she has this little stack of paper towel that she keeps, and she just likes it. And so you know, for her, even what for me, I throw out, she's like, Oh, Karen, I can't believe you're throwing that away. I'm like, it's totally fine.

That's funny, because it really does start with what you like. You know, that's what art is. Art is about feeding that part of yourself that gets to say, I like this. 

Yeah. And if you don't like it, there's so much out there. If we're talking to listeners, how would we suggest they get started? And I think the thing to think about is, like, there's so much out there, and it's not even expensive. You can go buy a cheap watercolor set, even, like a cheap kids’ watercolor set. You're not going to get great, you know, artistic results, but you're going to have fun. You can get crayons. You can get like, watercolor pencils are super fun, because you can just draw all kinds of stuff and then smear them with water and see what happens. There's so much media out there, so many types of things you can try and you, absolutely don't have to buy the expensive stuff. You can start with, you know, the inexpensive stuff, the cheap stuff, the stuff that your kids haven't taken off to school. Like, honestly, I have brushes and old paints and things that are from, you know, school supplies that I had to buy for my kids and, and then, you know, then you don't worry about it. When you have expensive paper, and paper, for people who don't know, paper can be really, really expensive, and it's 100% cotton, and it's, you know, a certain weight, and it's different presses, and there's all kinds of stuff about paper that's expensive. So, you know, 10 sheets of a really good, like, a block of watercolour, 10 sheets, 12 sheets of Arches, which is really nice French paper, but a block of 10 sheets is like 40 bucks. So people are like, oh, you know, I don't want to start something, because what if I mess it up, you know, I don't want to use up my expensive tubes of paint, because what if I mess it up? And one of my other friends said, you know, art supplies are only ever wasted when you don't use them.

I agree. But also, I also agree with having a stash of things that are not expensive, because they sort of pull you in, you know, if you feel like, oh, okay, well, I spent, you know, $10 on this sketchbook. Okay, good, race to the finish. Yes, fill every page of that sketchbook as fast as you can and go buy another one. 

Yeah, exactly. And you don't have to do drawing and stuff like art, like I was saying the beginning. Art can be like your garden. It can be how you decorate cupcakes. It can be, you know, I have friends who scrapbook, love scrapbooking, and others who, you know, rearrange their furniture and like, it's just a creative endeavor. It's looking at the world, creating a vision that you just think about, right? Art is just a visual thing that you think about. And, I mean, there's other types of art that aren't visual, music or whatever like there are. It's a different way of expressing yourself that gives you joy of some sort, and it doesn't matter what you try. Just keep trying different things till you find something you like.

Exactly, and that might change, and that's okay. And, you know, I guess I feel like the biggest experience for me is when I allow art to be in my life, I feel more whole.

I can see that. I can completely see that, yeah, I haven't thought about it in terms of feeling whole personally, but it does fill a space. So maybe it's the same thing for me, I feel like it's filling a space, which is just the way my brain thinks about what's probably the same thing for you, if you feel whole.

Because without it, I feel unbalanced.

Yeah.

I became kind of addicted to it. I think that's part of it. I just really enjoy it. And when I was doing those 100 days, yeah, it's like, it became like, every day, okay, I've got to find time. I said I was going to do something today, and I'm going to do it. And it made me just know, like fitting it in to a little slim snippet of my day and does become addictive in a good way.

Yeah, totally. So we've covered a lot of ground. Karen, such a fun conversation. Is there anything else that you that you want to add?

No, I don't think so. Ending on this idea of it doesn't matter what you do, just grab the cheap stuff, grab your kids’ school supplies, and just you don't have to share it. That's the other thing too. Is that it's personal. I made a decision to start putting some of my pictures on Instagram, and I sell them now, but then there are weeks and weeks that go by that I don't do that, because what I've created is personal, or I just don't feel like sharing it. So it can be just a completely personal endeavor. And if you're worried about being judged, then it can always a personal endeavor. I don't think people should worry about being judged, but if they are, you don't have to share it. It still gives you all of the benefits of this extra creativity and recharging your brain and experimenting and trying new things, you never have to share it.

I love that you brought that up, Karen, so that inner critic that I've experienced over the years really sort of speaks loudly in my head if I am planning to share my art. And right now it's actually come down. That voice inside my head has come down. It shrank a lot. And so now if I feel like I'm going to share my art, I'm very intentional about it. So if I look at it, I get to decide if I like it or if I don't like it, and if I show it to somebody, I have a very clear intention about, why am I showing it to this person? Maybe they want to try something like this, or maybe I know this person will appreciate something about what I've done, but it's not for approval. Yeah, yeah. And that's a real shift, and that shift happened through my artwork, but actually now I experience it in other aspects of my life too. 

I was going to say it must impact other areas because it's the same for me that I'm less judgmental and more willing to put things out there, particularly in my writing. I do a lot of writing, and now I just worry a lot less about what anybody's going to think about it. 

Yeah, that's how I feel. And it's kind of a journey. It doesn't happen overnight, but it's well worth it.

Yeah, absolutely, I agree. This has been super fun. I spend a lot of time talking to lawyers about law and about their practice and about efficiency, and I don't get to talk about my art, really ever with somebody else, I feel like we've been able to kind of nerd out a little bit about art. 

Yeah, I know me too, wonderful. Thank you so much, Karen. I'm so happy that we finally did get to have this conversation. Me too. And to our listeners, if you are interested in learning more about Karen Dunn Skinner, please go to https://www.leanlegal.academy/. You've been listening to Get in the Driver's Seat, stories about leadership moments in professional practice. I'm your host. Sandra Bekhor Practice Management Coach at Bekhor Management. Take care, everybody. Bye.