'Creative' is word often thrown at me, both by the people I know and random strangers on the street, but I feel at odds with the label. I have often wondered what the word 'creative' means. What is it that I am creating? Myself? My environment? My future?
Looking back on the past four years, I've realised that there are certain requirements essential in order for a human to fulfil their creative potential. There are three influential thinkers and authors who have made an impact on my own understanding and interpretation of what creativity is, where it originates from and most importantly, the tools and strategies necessary in order for it to blossom into full fruition: Maslow, (William) Morris, and Woolf. I'll talk more about them in my next post, but my interpretation of their offerings related to the tools required to nurture creativity essentially boils down to: skill, time, space, and a little money to get things started off. This post will focus on the broad expanse that is the emotional aspect of creativity.
The most significant revelation to myself about creativity is this: it has no cost value, no financial instigation, yet can bring monetary rewards for the bearer if harnessed well. Everything that I know, everything that I am, has been a product of relatively free or low-cost things. From a young age, I was aware that the library was a haven of knowledge. Each aisle was a border of another land and I was free to cross the plains of my own volition, guided by nothing but the thirst of something unseen (by my eyes) and new. I genuinely believe that this wonderful, state-funded institution was the start of all things great in my life. I wasn't just reading fiction books - I was hopping from world to world, a small time traveller, reading about art and textiles and NVQ books on becoming a nail technician before I was 10, blissfully unaware of why I enjoyed reading these things and how they would form a bigger part of my life in exactly 10 years to come.
For a long time, I believed that qualifications were everything. I believed that because I wasn't able to choose my GCSE choices (having arrived at my 5th and final secondary school on the cusp of Yr 9 SATS examinations and therefore far too late to have a say in the matter), the fact that Art and Textiles were out of my reach meant that I was never going to be involved in these fields as a future career (or so my illogical 14-year-old mind naturally concluded).
But I've realised something - the resources to learn and develop ourselves are all around us, if only we look outside properly. The great thing about having libraries and museums and art galleries and exhibitions; or the internet, or being blessed enough to live in a space surrounded by people who are curious about the world and constantly forming their own ideas about why things are the way they are...all these things can help to shape our own person if only we release the tension and absorb. Not passively, but actively. You cannot wait for inspiration to strike - it is something that must be sought. Discover what it is that sets your heart alight and use everything around you not only as an aid to help you understand it better, but to develop your own interpretation of that chosen topic, whatever it may be.
Then comes the time for the part of the process which will see you at your most fragile: express. Do not lock away all that you know, all that you have harnessed and grown in fear of the opinions of others. You have to be strong enough in yourself to know that you have given all that you can to whatever it is you have created, before you can release it into the world; be it a piece of work, or a project. That strength doesn't come from the opinions of others, but from the opinion you hold of yourself. You are with yourself 24/7, consciously and subconsciously, in a dream-like or awake state, in the company of others or alone. Creative confidence (the belief that your ideas are worthy and whole, in and of themselves) is something that is developed over time. Things do not go right on the first attempt.
The first essays I ever wrote, or the first sets of nails I ever painted, or the first dress that I ever sewed, or the first time I ever tried pin-up hair were awful, but at the time, I was satisfied enough with the fact that I had attempted, that I had tried. Then I looked at what went wrong and what went right on each of those acts of creation and tried again. Then I analysed what I did well and what could be improved once more, after that attempt, and tried another time; and so on and so forth. I'm still learning; we all are. The most important thing is to never stop trying because someone tells you that you can't or shouldn't do something. This often becomes even more complex and difficult to overcome, because sometimes the very person we are trying to become can be held back by the person that we currently are. Self doubt is a common and natural emotion, especially when experienced in anticipation of paths never before crossed. Self-sabotage is the older and more destructive sibling of self-doubt, because this behaviour can become so ingrained and automatic and normalised that you cease to even notice it, let alone find the strength to break out of its vicious cycle.
In order for any act of creation to be completed to its full potential, you must possess not only the skills and tools required to execute that act well, but also time. Time is so important and where I have been going wrong. I have recently been spreading myself too thinly across all manner of things. I have realised that I do not have to berate myself if that thing doesn't get done, because I know nine times out of ten, I was most likely working on something else. It wasn't laziness, or poor organisation - just too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
We have to create time for the things we love and the people we love. If we want creativity to help us grow, we must then respect creativity for the powerful force that it is, by allowing it enough time to blossom, as well as the space in which to do so. Only then can it transform from something intangible into something physically and emotionally present on the outside, but more importantly, solid and concrete and permanent on the inside, in the core of our very selves.
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