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I had forgotten. I am (sometimes) creative!
And fittingly, I found my reminder out there in the blogosphere. A couple days ago, I was reading one of my favorite blogs of late in an attempt to become inspired. I was looking not for inspiration to draw but rather to write (makes sense, you know, reading to get started writing). As any regular followers of Cozy Little Life know, the posts come in spurts. I get urges, write one or two posts, and then fizzle out. So I was looking for some sort of kick-start and that day's post was all about how the author realized her own talent and enjoyment in drawing while helping motivate her daughter's creativity. Her family declared it an Art Weekend (how great is that?)!
Well, it made me think about my own drawing project I had abandoned many months ago, and the others that never even got their starts because...because why? What happened to my creative mojo? I've always been a pretty creative person in nature, rather than a very logical or analytical one. Art, music, writing - my brain has always just understood them. I played an instrument all throughout grade school, took etching and drawing classes in college, and I wrote half a novel for my thesis. But after my days of the classroom came to an end, these old interests seemed to end, too. It would be easy to blame my grown-up responsibilities as the killer of my creative side because even after several job changes and successful efforts to make more time for me and my 'muse' to bond together, I still stopped creating. Too much time had passed since I last tried, or maybe I got burnt out, all of my creative juices spent. Mostly, I think I let the big scary thought of drawing or writing or whatever (and the daunting end-product I was working towards) stop me from even starting a project. This too often has been the case for me, in life. Is it a self-doubt issue? Probably.
Well an hour or two after reading that blog post, I pulled out the unfinished project, my charcoal pencils and powder, and sat down to draw. And it felt AMAZING. I didn't worry about how it will look in the end, about how long it might take to complete, about whether or not I will keep on drawing a day from now, or next week or next month. I might fizzle out again. But I tried not to think and just let myself enjoy the act of drawing. I was right away more peaceful and content and meditative with every scratch of my pencil over the paper.
I thought of a young boy I babysit. He's four, and he loves to draw. But also, a lot of the time, he gets upset and stressed out about how "good" he can draw, and then it's not enjoyable for him. Sometimes he won't even start a drawing because he already thinks it's going to be "bad" in his mind. It's saddening to witness his joy squandered by an arbitrary notion of talent that he picked up from where? Contrast that with his little sister, who's 18 months. She loves to draw and loves the act of drawing. She doesn't yet know what talent means. She probably doesn't even have an image in her consciousness of what her picture will be or is once it's completed. Drawing is still so pure for her. Is her own self-doubt as an artist inevitable? It it that perhaps unlike her brother, she's just more creative by nature and will continue to enjoy drawing even when she's four and still as she's older? I can't guess.
Why is it that we (the greater we, everyone, society) should suddenly give up coloring and crafts when we leave grade school? I believe it's both Waldorf and Rudolf Steiner, two approaches to education, that foster art all across the curriculum as a more innate tool of expression and learning that everyone can share in and utilize throughout their lifetimes. As opposed to the notion that art is one separate subject, with boundaries, that becomes reserved only for the gifted, "talented," once we reach a certain level of education.
Well, maybe this discussion is a little bigger than one post can handle. I started out writing with the intent to discuss imitation and it's ability to inspire. Monkey see monkey do. It digs a bit deeper, though, and begs for thorough pondering.
