Rediscovery Creativity

Getting myself out from under the pressure of labels and just letting my brain be

I’ve been disappointed with myself for years, embarrassed even. I wouldn’t craft at art lucks, I didn’t want to sketch in a class I payed to be at, I didn’t want to show anyone anything I wrote for fear of judgement. If I’m honest with myself I didn’t want to be creative, I wanted someone to tell me I was creative.

I guess I wanted it too. I wanted the juice of inspiration to flow through my veins. I wanted endless ideas sparking through my imagination every time I closed my eyes. A house full of things I brought into the world.

But more than that, I wanted people to look at me like I was creative. I wanted to be the girl in paint covered overalls with dirt on her face, a new sweater knitted by her own hands, a half finished project on the living room floor I can’t wait to finish. Look at Jules, always creating something new. Her brain never stops.

I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Or maybe more so felt that I wasn’t allowed to call myself a creative which lead to the question: well what the hell am I then?

I’ve been turned down for art shows because my gear isn’t art which I understand. My job is technical and rigid and production based. It’s math and calculations and testing. I’m not an artist, I say that to people weekly. I can’t paint or create like any of the talented people I license work from but I thought I could at least call myself a creative. A broader encompassment of the ways I make my living and walk through the world. But I’ve felt cut out of maker spaces before because the things I make are too pretty to be seen as functional to a lot of people. Seen as more of art in spaces where black fabric is standard. But not my art, the art of the talented creatives I work with to make the gear of my dreams. It’s a weird liminal space, a limbo. Feeling like I’m not enough of an artist to belong with the creatives and that my head is too far in the clouds to be grounded as a tradesman.

The design work, the hours crafting patterns isn’t seen as creativity, it’s seen as a skill. Like electrical work or mechanics. I make things you could find at REI for half the price. I’m expected to craft high quality, unique outdoor gear at mass produced pricing because it’s a trade, not an art form. I’m a low production factory, an ineffective human machine, not a creative.

It didn’t used to bother me until I found it changing the way I viewed myself, changing the way my brain dreamed what was possible.

I found myself saying;

I’m not a writer, I just journal. I don’t even know why I waste my time editing these things.

I’m not a photographer, I just can’t stop spending money on film. I can’t even take a good photo.

I can’t make anything that’s good.

I can’t sell prints or write a book or make a gift, no one wants that. My friends are so talented and I can’t even paint for fun.

I put up blockades to what I was and wasn’t allowed to do as a non-creative. I stopped telling people I worked as a creative and started saying small business owner. I stopped trying to create anything at all, refusing to doodle out of fear of making something bad.

At the end of the day, I had been performing creativity. Trying to collect it instead of experience it.

This winter I decided it didn’t matter if I was or wasn’t creative. It didn’t matter if someone thought I was creative, if someone thought I was a writer or a photographer or an artist or if thought I was those things. What mattered was that I wanted to make things. I wanted to sit down and play around, exercising the muscles of my imagination and letting myself be free to the whims in my mind. I’ve spent hours writing horrible essays just to delete them with a smile or publish them on substack without a care in the world if anyone ever reads them.

Every Monday I buy myself a coffee and sit for hours practicing writing because it brings me joy.

I spent multiple days crafting snails ornaments out of air clay, wire, fabric, and cheap acrylic paint after seeing an instagram reel of them. Hours have been spent collaging for no other purpose than whimsy. Experimentation. Silliness and pride.

Painting and repainting pointless things around my house and letting them exist openly imperfect. Finishing them without a care as to how they look, not embarrassed by sloppy lines or uneven flower petals. Just fulfilled by the act of spending time making something just for me.

I spent hours digitally erasing the backgrounds of my film photos and creating over 100 collages instead of doing the dishes and found a hobby I can’t stop.

My mind reels with crafts I want to do when I have time. They pop into my head as I’m walking my dog or driving to the grocery store and I can’t help but smile at the future fun experiment I can add to my mental list.

I wish I had a list of steps I took to “get my creativity back” but the only thing that truly changed is I actually sat down and made things.

I stopped letting my fear of judgement stop me from trying (insert A Cinderella Story quote about the fear of striking out here). The joy of living alone is if I spend hours making something that is hideous, I get to just enjoy the process, maybe laugh at the silly thing I spent so much time on, and then go about my day. When I stopped judging myself, I stopped caring if others would too. If I have a thought, I find time and I give myself the time to try something. I let myself get inspired by instagram reels and Pinterest crafts without the pressure to make something entirely new. Experimenting with the color way of that kitchen and the shape of that clay and the motifs in that photo. If I have a silly idea, I let myself have the time to actually pursue it, regardless of outcome.

I let myself create.

And now that I’m in it, I don’t care what label you put on it, on me. All I care about is that I keep doing it.