Creative Desire

The deep clean of our home continues. Buried in the back of a closet,  I found some paintings I did from the mid 90s in a class called the painting experience, kind of a visual form of the Wild Writing practice I teach. I’m sharing one here not because I think it’s good, but because I think it says something about creative desire.  

Creativity is about more than asking— is it good? Is it impressive? It’s about bringing forth something inside that wants to come out.  Following instinct to make something tangible.

This is surely true for me in the realm of visual art because I have little facility, confidence, or vanity attached to it, an approach I try to encourage in our writing circles. It doesn’t matter if it’s good, it matters if it’s true.

In all honesty, I was kind of shocked when I saw these paintings all these years later. That’s one of the gifts of creativity, you see parts of yourself you might not have known were there.

There’s a time for refinement. Time for the hard work, the discipline it takes to work on craft. I edited my memoir a dozen times, probably more, poring over each sentence until I was satisfied, polishing until I could hear a few words sing on the page.

But that’s not how I started. I started with curiosity, and telling my truth to the best of my ability.

If there is something inside of you that wants to be expressed in a creative form, whatever that form is, whether you understand its language or not, do it. Meet yourself.  Surprise yourself. Respect yourself.