Solitude and Creativity
What to Expect
In this post, I’ll explore the paradox of solitude, how it can feel both isolating and essential, lonely and liberating, boring and yet often can be a space for our creativity to flourish. I’ll share my own evolution from never making space for alone time to craving it on the daily, and not just that, I am also going to share how I learned to create space for solitude even when if felt like true silence seemed impossible. This is about the messy, beautiful journey of learning to be with yourself and the creativity that may follow.
I’ve sprinkled in some of my recent portrait and fine art work throughout this post that carry the beautiful energy of solitude.
Tl;Dr
I have learned that solitude isn’t just about being alone, it’s about learning to listen to what’s been whispering (or yelling!) beneath the noise of daily life. As a full-time photographer and parent to an autistic child who I was often advocating for, I struggled to find alone time, and then my circumstances forced me to redefine what solitude could be.
Last May after I found out I too am Autistic I treated myself to noise-canceling headphones as a late birthday present (if you don’t have a pair I highly recommend them!) and began shifting my creative practice to find new ways to get artsy fartsy within my new limitations. Through this I discovered that I could find new ways to carve out alone time and time to be creative within all the chaos around me.
For me the coolest part of it is that this discovery didn’t just birth a fine art practice, it also led me to going full into ditching stuff I no longer want to do (I even did a full website overhaul!) and committing to get even louder about my approach and intention as a photographer.
See, over the years something I have heard from many of my clients is that they come to me for their own kind of solitude: a rare moment of being truly seen, of being alone with themselves even though we’re together. They have then loved seeing themselves reflected back to them as art, capturing their full range of emotions in a way that honours this time in their lives.
Growing into my full artist self has led me to see that both my introspective portrait sessions and my fine art print boutique offer the same gift, a moment to return to yourself, a moment to honour all that is.
QUIET moments of SOLITUDE
Sooooooo what even is solitude?
The answer to the question really depends on what dictionary you look at. You might find that solitude is defined as simply “the state of being alone,” but personally that definition feels incomplete. Solitude, to me, is more than physical aloneness, it’s a quality of being, a way of encountering yourself without the mediating influence of others.
Some definitions frame solitude as voluntary isolation, distinguishing it from loneliness, which is imposed or unwanted. Others describe it as a sanctuary, a retreat from the demands and noise of the world. But for me solitude honestly is all of these things at once: it’s the space where we meet ourselves, for better or worse, without distraction or audience, which feels so foreign in this time we are living in.
In my life solitude has become that space where confusion and clarity come together to dance, just as light and shadow do in.
What Solitude Means to Me
My recent unexpected time in the hospital offered me a forced solitude if you will, and honestly I keep thinking this was possibly the only way I would get it, sad but true. And during the time in the hospital, year end, reflecting on what has been going on in my life and where
I want to go… well spoiler alert, I didn’t come up with any answers but I did come to realize just how badly my body needed to this type of rest and alone time.
I honestly didn’t even realize my need for solitude until my mid-40s, because I’ve always been seen as an extrovert busy body, out there getting to know people, lending a hand, community organizing and caring for my family, and this seemed to work well for me for that season of life, until it didn’t. I think it was around 35 that I started to realize, wait a minute, I think I am actually an introverted extrovert!
I would get laughed at for sharing this with people as I had proudly earned the extrovert platinum level membership so no one could ever picture me as an introvert, but it’s true, I am.
And now I sit and wonder how the heck did I go decades, DECADES, without recognizing something so core to who I am, maybe you can relate? Life sure does have a way of keeping us so busy, so needed, so engaged with the world that we forget to check in with what’s happening inside, or maybe we are even avoiding it.
Now, as a parent to a child with high support needs, and by that I mean a child who cannot attend school and requires constant care, solitude has become both more precious and more elusive. Many parents can relate to the scarcity of alone time, but there’s a next level when your child’s needs are so encompassing that even five minutes of uninterrupted thought feels like a miracle.
Solitude, for me, might be nothing more than a bath with my laptop watching funny shows (if you haven’t watched Survival of the Thickest yet what are you waiting for?) I often even chill in the bath until the water goes cold, cause listen I am soaking up every damn minute ok! (pun intended). And more recently I have taken to putting music on my noise cancelling headphones and photographing flowers, random things
I find along my dog walks and even still life of items in my home, to tap into my need for creativity and play. And friends am I ever impressed with what is happening… but more on that to come.
Every time I reflect on my life the irony isn’t lost on me: when I worked full-time as a photographer with a full calendar serving clients for the last ten years while also caring for my child who was in school, I thought I had no alone time. Then my world shifted when I had to pull my son from school to have him home full-time, and I discovered what no alone time truly meant. I was drowning in constant presence, constant need, constant noise (side note I often feel like the grinch in that scene where he like like ‘noise noise noise NOISE!) I often would feel absolutely frozen and like I was in the movie Groundhog day.
That’s when I realized something crucial: I couldn’t connect with myself through all this noise. I was constantly overwhelmed and fragmented, a collection of responses to everyone else’s needs with no centre to return to.
Creating my own version of Solitude When Silence Isn’t Possible
I had to stop fighting against my circumstances and find a way to be in this liminal space, even when I wasn’t truly alone. Enter noise-canceling headphones and an endless rotation of musicians whose work became my sanctuary. I would put them on and zone out, creating an invisible boundary between myself and the world, a space where it felt like just me, alone with my thoughts and groovy basslines, and let me tell you without exaggeration when I say those headphones saved me!
This might not seem like solitude in the traditional sense. It’s not a quiet cabin in the woods or a solo meditation retreat. But for me, this was how I could access the I needed, and the more I did, the more I eased into this new sense of being “alone” with my thoughts and my creativity.
And that’s where something unexpected happened.
In this intentionally arguably forced carved-out space, I found time go deeper into my a type of creative photography practice that I had been wanting to do for ages. I began getting lost in the layers of flower petals, finding new textures in ordinary objects I’d seen a million times before suddenly became new when I really looked at them. I’d even say it became meditative, this practice of slowing down and photographing random found objects. And as I began to show these photos to some of my most trusted photographer friends they would be in awe of how I saw things, often bringing beauty to details that often go unnoticed. (thanks friends, love you!)
And then something extra unexpected happened: this shift didn’t pull me away from portrait work, it deepened it. I began to reflect on how many of my portrait clients were coming to me for their own kind of solitude, a message I have been hearing for years and it all finally clicked. Even though we were together during their photoshoot, they were experiencing a rare moment of being truly seen, of being alone with themselves in a way that the chaos of their daily lives didn’t allow. The portrait session became a sanctuary for them, just as my solo creative practice had become one for me
My approach to portraits over time has become more introspective, more emotionally raw. I wasn’t just taking photos anymore, and my intention was as an artist a title I was so fearful to own. I realized my gift as an artist was just as much about holding space for people to connect with themselves, often for the first time in months or even years, as it was about creating art for them.
Yes of course ideally, I’d love time alone with complete silence. That would be the dream. But that’s not often my reality, and I had to make peace with that. I had to create what I was craving and shut the world out, without guilt. And that’s what I am still here working on
the gift of light and shadow
Here’s what I want to share that I’ve learned about solitude: much like photography it holds both light and shadow, and you cannot have one without the other.
When we spend time alone with only our thoughts, confusion can arise and don’t I know it. But so can clarity. We might encounter parts of ourselves we’ve been avoiding, thoughts we’ve been too busy to hear, feelings we’ve been too distracted to feel, or that we didn’t want to make space to feel with fear of what might surface. In solitude, that all caps bold message is finally getting our full attention.
Let’s face it, we’ve been influenced our entire lives by others, and now even more so by social media and the constant stream of external voices is relentless. So when we’re alone, truly alone, we’re forced to
listen to our own internal voice and we might even struggle to hear it. And that can be terrifying. It can also be liberating.
In that liminal space, release can happen. Creativity can spark. Joy can bubble up. Even self-destruction can emerge, which is why solitude isn’t always comfortable or safe-feeling. Sometimes there’s shedding that has to happen first, layers of performance and protection we have to peel away before we can find the gift that lies beneath.
This is why solitude, which is often seen as a sad thing, can also be a privilege, the ability to retreat to a space alone, just with oneself, is something not everyone has access to or feels safe enough to experience.
What’s waiting for us…
I want to be clear: this isn’t about toxic positivity (I sure as hell am never going to add to that noise) simply pretending that solitude is always peaceful and pleasant, because it’s not. Sometimes, in fact I suspect most times it’s uncomfortable.
But I do want to offer attention to the positive things that may emerge when we spend time alone, the unexpected gifts if will. For me, it was reconnecting with my creativity in a completely new way, one that I had long thought about but never, you guessed it, made the time for.
It was finding that I could feel most alive not in the constant doing and responding, but in the quiet observing and creating. It was discovering that the thing I once associated with loneliness and sadness could become the thing that made me feel most like myself. This reframe happened not by forcing it, but by leaning into it and returning again and again to whatever form of alone time I could access, even if it wasn’t perfect or complete.
And from this practice, something else was born: a collection of images that hold the quiet I was finding.
I’m launching a fine art print boutique where these photographs, the flowers, the natural elements, the still life compositions born from my own need for solitude, will be available for others. I’ve come to believe that art can offer its own form of retreat, a visual sanctuary where we can rest our eyes and, for a moment, our minds.
Perhaps the only solitude you can access right now is five minutes alone with an image on your wall. Or perhaps it’s the hour you spend in front of my camera, being truly seen without performing, without managing anyone else’s needs. Both are valid. Both are necessary.
Art has this quiet power, it doesn’t demand anything from us. It simply exists, offering a place to land when everything else feels too loud, too fast, too much. Whether that’s through a portrait session where you get to be alone with yourself while being witnessed, or through a print that hangs in your home offering a moment of visual refuge.
If my work can provide that kind of sanctuary for even one person, then all those stolen moments in the laundry room, all those hours with headphones on creating something while the world swirled around me, will have become something more than survival. They’ll have become a gift I can share.
UNSOLICITED advice… or let’s call them ideas!
I know how hard it is to carve out alone time when you have jobs and commitments, when you’re caring for children or aging parents or other loved ones. I know it can feel near impossible, even selfish.
AND I’ve come to see that it’s also necessary, at least for me anyway, and that there are ways we can make it happen, we just have to be ok that it might look different that what we truly desire but hey this is us meeting ourselves half way.
Here’s my unsolicited advice you, if you are up for it: start where you are. I know that sounds easier said than done but here’s some ideas, oh and if you are able, allow yourself to feel into whatever arises when you’re alone. Don’t fight it. Don’t judge it. Just notice it. And then keep returning to it, in whatever small ways you can.
SIMPLE IDEAS FOR SOME MUCH NEEDED ALONE TIME
Maybe your version of solitude looks like mine: noise-canceling headphones and five minutes in the bathroom dancing in the mirror to your favourite song.
Maybe it’s a walk around the block, a drive with the music up (or off!)
Maybe it’s sleeping in an extra half an hour or going to bed earlier (only to watch tik tok videos that make you laugh out loud!)
Maybe it’s yelling at the top of your lungs into a pillow
Maybe it’s taking the time to cook a new yummy meal (and who cares if it’s only you that will like it!)
Maybe it’s organizing your closet with a movie playing in the background (another personal fav, always feels so good when things feel tidy!)
A new one I really enjoy is word searches and colouring books! 15 mins of that and I feel so refreshed!
Or maybe it’s morning tea before anyone else wakes up.
Whatever it ends up being doesn’t really matter, the point here is that you gave yourself that gift of alone time and please make sure to celebrate that you did, because as explored here we know that is so damn hard to do!
One thing I learned in my embodiment training is that when we stop fighting the discomfort of being with ourselves, when we embody it rather than resist it, something shifts. What might feel like pain at first can transmute into a new way of experiencing solitude, one that might just birth something beautifully unexpected and deeply needed. Not just for the world, but for you.
wrapping up
If you are still with me, thank you for spending your precious time reading what I had to share, it honestly really does mean a lot to me, and please do feel free to share your comments below as I reply to all of them!
I hope you can see from this post that solitude is not one thing, at least it’s not for me.
It’s not purely lonely or purely liberating, not entirely dark or entirely light. It exists in that rich, complex space where we can be with ourselves and our own thoughts without distraction. Where we can listen to what’s been trying to reach us through all the noise. And where we can feel into it all, and possibly even creating from this place.
For me, the journey from not making space for alone time to finding small pockets of it daily has been one of the most profound shifts of my life. What once felt like absence now feels like presence. What once felt like loneliness now feels like homecoming.
What once left me bored and wondering what to do has pushed me deeper into my creativity.
I wish for you to find your own version of this, whatever form it takes, however imperfect it might be, because it’s going to be hella messy and that’s ok. Because in a world (and often with families!) that constantly demands our attention and energy, the ability to return to ourselves, even for a moment, is not just a gift. It’s essential.
The photos you see in this post may be featured in my fine art print boutique, which if all goes well will be launching soon! If you’d like to be notified when it opens and receive updates on new work, I invite you to sign up for my newsletter. Perhaps one of these images will become your own five-minute sanctuary.
And please, do share any reflections you had while reading this, I love feeling like someone out there actually took time to read this, and hopefully it landed for you, and if not that is ok too!
One response to “Solitude and Creativity”
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Thank you to the ideas on getting alone time. It often seems impossible but you brought up simple tasks that we all can do to get some solitude. Love your vulnerability and thank you for sharing.
Thanks for Reading!
I’m Michele Mateus, award-winning fine art photographer based in Vancouver, BC, specializing in editorial portraits for
everyday people.
I work with clients throughout Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley who are drawn to imagery that explores what lies beneath the surface, work that prioritizes depth, artistry, and authenticity over perfection.
Ready to create something meaningful?
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