The Creative Unlearning

Every creative has a journey to take; a journey of unlearning. We need to be able to unravel all of the myths and stories we have been told about what it means to make art, the creative process and the artist. Think of all the words that have come your way over a lifetime about these areas. You will have heard of the starving artists myth, the idea that we have to live with creative blocks, that we have to wait for inspiration to strike. Only certain people are creative and others are not. That making art should be something that is seen as a luxury and only to be done in the evenings and weekends once you have completed your ‘real’ work. That it is child's play and not for adults, something you grow out of or keep on the sidelines. It is not a safe career path and it is not something you should think of doing as a career. If you have undertaken it as your full time profession I can guarantee you will have been asked the probing question:- but what is your ‘real’ job.

The wod ‘real’ seems to play a major role, when it comes to artists, as though what they create, the process to making art is somehow unreal. Like it is an abdication of adult responsibilities. That you are too busy playing to be taken seriously. And the only way to be taken seriously is if you are recognised by outside forces as being a ‘real’ artist. 

Where the value of art is only seen if it sells, if it acquires a financial figure, without which it remains in an abyss of art that is not deemed valuable or worthwhile. 

Or you may have been fated with the words of a parent or teacher who told you that you couldn’t draw or weren’t creative and this has haunted you since and you carry it around as a statement of fact, like a passport. This is me, I can’t draw because one person in 1985 told me so on a Tuesday morning and I decided as a child that it was true and they must be right, so much so that I have never even entertained the idea that I might have artistic tendencies. 

These are just a few of the beliefs that you may have inherited or heard so many times in so many different ways that you thought that they were the truth and never set out to question them.

This is a reminder to question everything and to come up with new ideas about what creativity, the creative process and being an artist means to you. This is the great unlearning and must be undertaken by every artist if they are to pursue their creative callings. These unquestioned beliefs are not benign, they prevent us moving forward or even beginning our creative explorations. They keep out desires inaccessible to us and have us believe that we should not even be looking in their direction. They rob you of the opportunity to make the art you dream of. They stall the creative process or even prevent it from ever beginning. 

I don’t care whether you want to create art for 10 mins every 2 weeks or you want to be creating art all of your waking hours. What I care about is that every individual who wants to create, who wants to explore their creativity through whichever mediums they choose feel like they are able to; that they have the freedom of mind to go ahead and make a mark on a piece of blank paper. That they are not held back from ideas and beliefs that they did not come up with but were handed down to them as facts as though they were talking about gravity. 

So if you feel even the smallest of creative callings and have felt like you didn’t have what it takes to begin or felt like it was a luxury set aside for a lucky few, then I want you to unravel all the beliefs that have been sold to you and take them all apart, until all that is left is a blank space that you get to fill.