Curator Renee Smith shares a deeply personal look at creative block – what it feels like when something you once loved starts to feel off, and how making space (rather than pushing harder) can gently lead you back.
When “This Used to Feel Easy” Doesn’t Anymore
There’s a particular kind of frustration that hits when something you love starts to feel… off.
Not bad. Not broken. Just off enough that you start questioning everything. That’s where I found myself.
Standing in front of my canvas, second guessing colors I used to trust. Overthinking decisions that used to come naturally. Starting pieces and not finishing them… or finishing them and thinking, well… that’s fine, I guess.
(And “fine” is not the goal, in case we needed to say that out loud.)
It wasn’t just creative block.
It felt like I had lost connection to something I couldn’t quite name.
The Part I Definitely Didn’t Plan
So when furniture showed back up, it wasn’t because I went looking for it. I wasn’t sitting there thinking, you know what I need to do… go back to painting furniture.
That wasn’t the plan. It showed up. A past client from years ago reached out…out of the blue… with two very large pieces and asked if I could turn them into something that would fit her vision for her new home.
And I said yes.
Not because I had some big strategy behind it. But because it was right in front of me.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that yes was going to lead me back to something I had been missing.
It’s Just Paint… Right?
Once I started working on hers, I pulled out a piece I’d had sitting in the studio… just waiting until I felt like painting furniture again.
And within minutes, something shifted. The excitement came back. That love for creating beauty came back. I found myself painting just for fun again. No overthinking.
I mean… it’s just paint, right?
Wait… Why Is This Easy All of a Sudden?
Then I did a piece for my daughter’s new home… and two more followed right behind it. Another for that same client. One just for fun.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I realized something else had shifted.
My canvas started working for me again. The colors began to flow. The pressure wasn’t there. The overthinking had quieted.
Not because I forced it… but because something in me had finally relaxed.
Turns Out… It Was Never About the Piece
And here’s the part that surprised me the most.
It wasn’t about furniture.
It was never about furniture.
It was about the space. Not just the physical space in front of me… but the space to create without pressure. The space to stop overthinking. The space to just be in it again.
This Is What I Was Missing All Along
There’s something different about creating when you’re not trying to prove anything. When you’re not asking, Is this right? Is this enough? Will this work?
You just… start.
And that’s what this gave me. A place to create without overthinking every single decision. A place where I could move, respond, adjust…without the pressure I had somehow attached to my work.
And the more I created, the more something inside me came back. The tension eased. The excitement returned.
And I remembered something I had forgotten.
Why I started in the first place.
Not to get it right. Not to keep up. Not to prove anything.
But to give myself permission to create. To take up space. To discover what was already there.
If This Sounds Familiar…
That feeling…that disconnect, the second guessing, the why does this suddenly feel so hard…it’s not just me.
It happens to a lot of us. Especially when we’ve been creating for a long time.
We start to overthink what once came naturally. We question what we used to trust. We try to push forward…when what we really need is to reconnect.
Apparently Going Back Counts Too
And here’s what I’m learning.
Sometimes the way forward doesn’t come from pushing harder. Sometimes it comes from going back.
Back to what felt natural. Back to what felt simple. Back to the version of you that wasn’t trying so hard to get it right.
For me, that looked like painting furniture again. And before long, I found myself saying yes to custom pieces in my studio again.
For someone else, it might look completely different.
But the pattern is the same.
When something you love starts to feel quiet in the wrong way… it doesn’t always mean you’ve lost it.
It might just mean you’ve drifted away from the part of you that felt most at home in it.
Turns Out… I Just Needed Space
And somewhere in all of this, something else became really clear.
This is the kind of work I want to do.
Not just changing a piece for the sake of changing it…but helping create something that feels like it belongs.
Something that holds meaning. Something that reflects the person it’s meant for. Something that makes space…not just in a room, but in someone’s life.
And maybe, if you’re in that place too, the answer isn’t to push harder… but to return to what once felt like home.
Turns out, I didn’t need a new direction. I needed space.
And sometimes the way back to yourself isn’t something new. It’s something you already know…waiting for you to come back to it.
If you want to see the kind of work I’m talking about, you can find it at rainydayvintage.com.
