Too Intimidated or Scared?
to explore a creative outlet or medium you are curious about…
Why should we find ourselves intimidated? I used to be, and I let that negative self talk interfere with my expressing my own creativity. We learn best by doing, so why hesitate?
I had an unpleasant experience with an art teacher in high school and it left me believing I just didn’t have any place trying to be “good at art.” Sad and so silly now in retrospect, but the joke was on me in the end. I thought she was ignoring me because I didn’t meet her standards, but I learned years later that it wasn’t just the talented kids she was fawning over, it was the male students! (who in my class happened to be the majority). I hadn’t thought about it through the gender filter at the time. I was quick to take responsibility for it.
I learned that there were other students who actually complained to the administration about her treatment towards her female students. It was a very large school and I didn’t learn about this until many decades later. Sad and unfortunate that this individual was a teacher and that her blindspot left her female students to try to interpret her lack of equity. Sadder still is that I internalized a belief that did not serve me. I am so glad that I threw off those limiting beliefs eventually.
People have a myriad of reasons why they believe they have no talent for artistic expression. I say “no” to all those reasons. I believe everyone should express themselves creatively every day in one form or another. For some it could be baking something delicious, knitting/weaving textiles, calligraphy, designing a garden, collage or creating sculpture from found materials. Maybe something more ephemeral like playing in a mud puddle with sticks, twigs, leaves and grass clippings like I did as a child. It gave me hours of deep satisfaction under those fruit trees to play in the dirt and plant life and imagine something and fashion it. I saw an artist on a program who painted with sand on a light box. Her work was beautiful, magical and fleeting.
There are no rules around this. The panoply of directions your creative explorations can take you has no limit.
I implore you to stay open and try many mediums and differing materials, you never know what you will learn about yourself through the process!
We can make master copies of other artists work to help our skills grow, to stretch ourselves; we can mimic their styles to learn and explore, but the ultimate expression to reach for is your own pure and unfiltered voice. It is a goal I still strive for for myself.