How do you feel when you think about making art?
Does it make you sweat in your socks? Feel like an imposter? Or maybe you feel okay if someone sticks a marker in your hand, but the idea of making something out of clay is scary.
If any of this sounds like you, you are not alone.
Many (most??) adults are disconnected from their creativity, and really, really disconnected from making art. Sometime in our past, we have gotten messages that we are not creative. That we can’t draw (and then we decide we aren’t artists). That creativity is not important. That our time is better spent on other things.
We stick our creativity in a dark drawer and throw a heavy-duty lock on it. And we walk away.
But I know - I KNOW - that you once felt like an artist. That you played with crayons and coloring books and put on plays with friends and finger painted and wrote short stories. At some point back in your history, you accepted without question that you are a creative being. You expressed yourself artistically because it came naturally. It was fun. It was an organic language for you.
That language is still there. It may be in a locked drawer, but drawers can be opened. There are keys for locks, and if they have been misplaced, bobby pins to pick them with (or hammers to smash them!).
A great way to reconnect with your inner creativity is to make art. Any art. Play around with whatever art tools feel fun and inviting. Luscious and mysterious. Exciting and sparkly.
Art is for everyone.
That goes for seeing art, and making art.
Art is for everyone. Everyone.
And the great thing about making art is what comes from the act of doing it. The joy and play and silliness and curiosity and information and relaxation. All the feelings.
When was the last time you made a piece of art? Not to put on a wall, not to sell to a gallery, not to even show your best friend. Just for the sake of making it. When you were five? 15? Yesterday?
Take some time to journal this week about your creative background. Try to remember what creativity looked like in your childhood. See what messages you got about art and creativity. Explore how your relationship to creativity changed, expanded, was severed, or dwindled away as you aged. Just write and explore and see what comes up.
And after that?
Make some art.
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