You expressed this ebb and flow through the ages very well.
As I approach my 64th birthday in a few days, I've been wrestling with finding a balance between image making and writing. I began drawing comics as a preschooler but I was pushed into writing as an outlet. (Music is a third but not as strong.) So I have this hybrid creativity that has been an ongoing internal conflict.... simply because I was allowed to write more years than draw or paint, I'm better at writing, but internally I want to do images yet I feel so inadequate in that and fear sets in that my image making isn't good enough...and you Know what that does to creativity!
And, I'm also staring into fading abilities as I age, I know it's possible I have limited years left of being able to handle art supplies, so that fear on top of fear creeps up. I really don't have any wisdom to give others except to embrace the gift of creativity and, well, as Pope Francis was famously quoted...."make a mess"! Go ahead and fail. Go ahead and write the worst you've ever written, draw or paint the worst, or whatever your creative gifts are....lower the expectations you have of your creativity just enough so you aren't afraid to make the mess, because in doing so, sometimes something unexpectedly joyful comes out of all that mess.
You know, we've forgotten, even among my generation, how the creatives before us didn't make masterpiece after masterpiece...ok, some maybe did...but the majority had piles of wadded up papers or painted over canvases, etc. So go ahead and mess up....we can't create anything that we feel is "worthy" if we hold back on creating. Go Create!
Now, um.....feel free to repeat that to me when I'm whining that I can't create anything "good enough". (smile)
You expressed this ebb and flow through the ages very well.
As I approach my 64th birthday in a few days, I've been wrestling with finding a balance between image making and writing. I began drawing comics as a preschooler but I was pushed into writing as an outlet. (Music is a third but not as strong.) So I have this hybrid creativity that has been an ongoing internal conflict.... simply because I was allowed to write more years than draw or paint, I'm better at writing, but internally I want to do images yet I feel so inadequate in that and fear sets in that my image making isn't good enough...and you Know what that does to creativity!
And, I'm also staring into fading abilities as I age, I know it's possible I have limited years left of being able to handle art supplies, so that fear on top of fear creeps up. I really don't have any wisdom to give others except to embrace the gift of creativity and, well, as Pope Francis was famously quoted...."make a mess"! Go ahead and fail. Go ahead and write the worst you've ever written, draw or paint the worst, or whatever your creative gifts are....lower the expectations you have of your creativity just enough so you aren't afraid to make the mess, because in doing so, sometimes something unexpectedly joyful comes out of all that mess.
You know, we've forgotten, even among my generation, how the creatives before us didn't make masterpiece after masterpiece...ok, some maybe did...but the majority had piles of wadded up papers or painted over canvases, etc. So go ahead and mess up....we can't create anything that we feel is "worthy" if we hold back on creating. Go Create!
Now, um.....feel free to repeat that to me when I'm whining that I can't create anything "good enough". (smile)
Thanks for this post. Keep Going!
Ritagail b.