Why you should start having Artist Dates

I restarted reading and going through the Artist’s Way – A spiritual path to higher creativity by Julia Cameron. “An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist… Yes. Your artist needs to be taken out, pampered, and listened to.” It’s also worth mentioning these dates are also supposed to by yourself and you’re not to bring anyone with you.

Since we live in a culture where you’re supposed to be “on” and produce all the time, it can cause you to feel depleted and uninspired after a long haul of doing.  These Artist Dates have been so fun that I thought it would be a fun series to share with others. I hope that it will spark some of your own creativity. And that you remember you are something that needs to be taken out, pampered, and nourished as a human being. These dates are supposed to be a weekly practice for someone in creative recovery. Honestly, these Artists’ dates are beneficial for everyone as I believe everyone is an artist and creator in their own way.

Artist dates can be an outing, sharing a discovery, obsession, workshop, etc. I don’t want to put too many boundaries about what an artistic or creative date should be. These will feature things skewed towards my own interests, tastes, and places that are special to me since I’m writing these.  With that said, let’s kick off this week’s date in the Outer Sunset.

The Outer Sunset, San Francisco

I spent my formative years in the Outer Sunset. And really, it’s the place I’ve stayed in the longest without moving for one reason or another. Things about the Sunset: it’s foggy, historically unsexy, but maybe that’s changing. The first sign of life or hipness was Outerlands opening a decade ago. And the block now is arguably one of the coolest blocks in the Outer Sunset.

Outerlands

4001 Judah St, bet 45th and 46th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94122

There are pockets of interesting things in the Inner Sunset, notably around the UCSF Golden Gate park area, but it was pretty slim pickings in the Outer Sunset. When I heard a hip restaurant opened out here I had to see it for myself. Outerlands lived up to the hype and has expanded over the years. In it’s own space and with other shop owners popping up on the same street.

Inside it looks like a chic wood cabin, with beautiful design details. The food doesn’t disappoint.

If there’s a waitlist you can wander into the stores down the street towards the ocean to pass the time.

A Case for Making 

4037 Judah St, San Francisco, CA 94122

 

A Case for Making makes its own watercolor pigments, It’s also a lovely art supple and stationery store as well. If we’ve spent any time together, you may know that I love me a good stationery store. My Type A personality finds comfort in stores that help with organization. As far as design goes, it also had a bit of the cabin vibe with wood-lined walls like Outerlands.

The store also has workshops related to watercolor. I’m thinking about exploring watercolor one day… but I’m also saying that about natural dying so there you go.

 

Black Bird Bookstore 

4033 Judah St, San Francisco, CA 94122

This place was such a lovely surprise! I love independent book stores in general and this quickly made the top of that list!

It has great natural light, a wonderfully curated selection of things. For adults there are books on current cultural topics, cookbooks, and other food-related wares. Kids have things like reading nooks, their own book selection a trainset,  and whimsy throughout the store. The back yard also sells succulents. It essentially had a lot of my favorite things all in one store.

Events include storytime for kids. If I had a human child, I would bring them here all the time for storytime.

 

Conclusion

The simple act of wandering and exploring has always been a favorite activity so it made sense to do that on my first Artist Date. It’s good to see growth in the Outer Sunset. It still has the feel of the old neighborhood but it’s nice to see there are still artists in San Francisco. I have more dates planned but please do let me know if you have anything you’d like to see featured and I can add them to the future Artist Date list!

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