There Are No Google Maps For Artists

The beauty of Google Maps is that we put in our destination, and it provides us with a route that is the fastest and simplest way to get there, and it breaks it all down to the granular. Take the first left, then the next right. 

And we enjoy the ease and the assistance for getting us to our desired location. No need to stop and ask someone directions, no getting lost and wondering where the hell you are. It even tells you the time you will arrive. Faultless. 

The life of an artist, the life of a creative business, does not offer anything of the sort. There are no simple, fast, formulaic directives that will get you to your chosen destination whatever that might be. There are basic outlines, like set some time aside and have your art materials ready to paint. Aside from that, this is where the directions end. This is where the audio on your Google Maps would go silent. There would be no linear offerings.

Because the act of creating anything does not have a linear path to follow and it is not going to be the same for everyone. It will include false starts, dead ends, beginning again and again, dips, crevices, crescendos all mixed in and not a straight line to follow in sight. And this can throw us. After all, since we are born, we are fed a diet of conditioning that tells is that A will take us to B and then we will end up with C. There are milestones that follow the chronology of age and there are symbolic rites of passage whether that is learning to talk and walk to going to school, to graduating, to marrying to becoming a parent, to retiring. So neat and sanitised and nothing like the life of living creatively. Not to say these symbolic activities will not come to pass, just that this version of events looks like it is clear, that one thing leads to the other. 

Creatives must get used to an alternative way of life and living. To enjoy the curves of life and not crave the linear. I made the mistake of spending too much time craving the straightforward directive path. I wanted to know that if I did this one thing, then this outcome would be guaranteed. Until I learnt after numerous attempts that I was better off embracing the oscillating world of creativity and enjoying the journey of it all because it is a heady mix of of imagination, intuition and confidence that mixes into a cocktail of creativity which is not formulaic or follows the same route every time. 

I have not experienced one year similar to the last in my creative business. For all the 8 years, each one has taken me on a different journey, chosen a different route and ended up at various destinations. 

 I have yet to have the exact same experience each time I create a new piece of art. Each brush stroke inspired and influenced by the experiences I have had up until that point. Ever changing experience of life, reflected in the slightest of ways in each creation of art. 

 Being an artist, living creatively, asks that you drop conventional linear thinking and embrace the unknown and less directed path. It requires you to have an unrelenting faith when you are riding the waves of the journey and not be yearning for the Google Maps experience of someone directing you to your destination. Your experience as an artist, in creating art and navigating that path will be as unique to you as your DNA and that is where the beauty lies. That is why the piece of art that you create formed from all your lived experiences both consciously and unconsciously manifests into art that could not have been created by anyone other than you. How beautiful is that?

 If you would like to work with me, then please click here to look at my offerings. There may be something to suit you and where you are on your creative journey.