Let me tell you about a conversation I have all the time. Right now I’m a self portrait photographer taking photographs inspired by the folklore and stories of the North Yorkshire Moors. Two years ago I was a stockbroker in the City of London, stressed and very unhappy. When I have that inevitable cocktail party chat about what I do, the conversation usually goes something like this:
-What do you do?
-I’m a photographer?
-Ah, that’s cool. Have you always taken photos?
-No, not always
-But I bet you were always arty at school right?
-No. Actually I was terrible at art. I can’t draw or paint very well at all, even now.
-But you were always creative?
-Not really. I was a stockbroker for many years and I really wasn’t creative at all then.
-But when you were little, I mean really little, you probably had a great imagination, didn’t you?
-Okay, yes I did. I was always creating games and and dressing up games were my favourites.
-Ah right.
Sometimes the questions take a slightly different form, but the outcome is usually the same. The conversation carries on with more and more questions until I finally admit that I have always been creative in some shape or form. At this point, the frown on my interviewer’s face melts away into a look of immense relief and we are then free to move on to other topics.
Because this conversation happens so often, I’m fascinated by it. Because it cannot end until we reach the same conclusion suggests to me that the conversation has meaning. The fact that it’s often such a similar conversation suggests that the meaning is universal. And I believe that meaning is this…..
We have a fundamental belief that creative people are different. They are born with a natural ability to paint and draw, or maybe sing and dance. They have god given fashion sense and manage to always look cool while wearing something that would make the rest of us look like the lady who collects plastic bags in the park. They make their own clothes, dye their own hair and furnish their houses with vintage flea market finds transformed into unique home decor. They are cooler than you or I will ever be.
We also believe that all of this comes naturally to them. They are moved to express their creativity in any and every way because they can’t not do it. To quote Lady Gaga, they are “born this way.” And thank goodness they are. Because if they weren’t, each of us would have to wonder if we could be creative too. Each of us would have to wonder if we could be the creator of our own lives, our own experiences, our own homes, our own destiny. This belief that artists are fundamentally different to you and I is such an unhelpful viewpoint. It keeps people stuck and it keeps them small and I want to put an end to it.
Fortunately for me, and perhaps unfortunately for everyone I meet at cocktail parties, I am living proof that none of this is true. I am the proof that a creative core is present in all of us, whether our teachers recognise it or not, whether we nurture it or not, whether we express it or not. Like it or not, you are an artist of something. Like it or not, you are a creative person. Like it or not, my story could be your story.
And my story is this. One day, around the age of thirty, when my life had finally calmed down from the traumas of an early marriage and painful divorce, I heard a whisper in my heart. I had no idea what it was but I was busy chasing everything I was supposed to want, and so I ignored it. Undeterred it kept speaking to me. It wanted me to take singing lessons and learn to paint. It wanted me to start writing. Convinced I had lost the plot, I carried on chasing a boyfriend and a promotion and got them both. But the wish was out there in the world and wishes have a power all of their own so circumstances conspired to bring me to a point of crisis in my life so that I might choose. The safe life or the scary life. Staying small or opening up. With the life I had believed I wanted crumbling around my ears I decided that it might be a good time to try something new. All because I didn’t listen to the whispered wish.
So I tried the singing (I sucked) and the painting (terrible). The writing was a little better and when I came to taking photos, I knew I had found the medium with which I could come closest to expressing myself. So I know you can find yours, even if you suck at everything artistic you’ve ever tried. Maybe your art is balloon animals or jelly sculpting. Maybe it’s belly dancing or reading Alice in Wonderland aloud with all the voices. Maybe it’s gardening or baking the most amazing croissants. Your art is whatever makes you feel alive and like you are accessing the best part of yourself. Your art brings you exquisite joy because it brings you in touch with a part of yourself you used to know but had stopped believing in.
I know there is a way you can express yourself and I know you want to. I know that voice is whispering to you right now and you’re not telling anyone. That’s your creative core whispering to you, whispering that there is another way. Trust her. Believe her. Or at least be prepared to follow for a while with an open mind. Because actually, Gaga was right. You were born this way baby….maybe you just got lost for a while. It happens to the best of us.
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This post was first published on the blog of the lovely Catherine Just on December 26th 2011.