Neko

Sylvia's Studio

Creativity is simple

I was bringing some paper scraps left over from tearing up magazines or collages to the paper recycling bin when the title for this blog post started to run through my mind.

I could instantly feel this blog post bouncing around, ready to appear from beyond those words.

I was afraid I would lose the line on my way back to the computer, so I kept singing “creativity is simple!” to myself.

I didn’t lose the three words, nor the blogpost that hid beyond. Here it is.

When I was a young girl I thought art was hard. I didn’t get good marks on my drawing skills, and my artworks were viewed as unremarkable.

I didn’t feel like I was very creative, yet I filled my red binder with poetry and short stories from a very young age and I loved to knit and crochet. I also tried sewing, taught by my mom who is a great seamstress. I made doll dresses, even. A tad wonky, but they fit my dolls.

I was so creative but I just didn’t see it.

When I was in my twenties I felt I was starving for creativity.

Instead of focusing on my writing, I went to art class, where I discovered that art class felt like drowning in other people’s ideas on what art should be, not what it could be for me.

The teacher said later, that she only noticed I was happy when I got to make pen and ink drawings.

She was right. It was the one moment where my art felt like something that was mine. It was the one moment where I was fearless.

I wish I could go back in time and tell those two versions of myself that creativity is simple: just make what you want to make.

You want to make art? Find a way that works for you.

Play with making collages. Tear up magazines and paint with snippets of paper. Draw ugly cats, and draw them time and time again until you see something that makes those cats you.

You want to write? Just freewrite for 15 minute and see what your wild mind comes up with.

That’s creativity.

Conforming to some sort of standard doesn’t make you creative. It does make you a pro at conforming to some sort of standard.

Don’t listen to the rules, either.

You know, the ones that tell you that you have to draw this and that way, or you have to write in that one way or you aren’t a writer.

Carve out your own path.

And then, maybe, one day you will walk to the paper recycling bin and sing to yourself, “creativity is simple!”

#noodling