Creating At The Edge Of Safety
What does it mean to be creatively confident?
1. I heard a quote the other day, apparently from Picasso. “It took me 4 years to paint like Raphael, and a lifetime to paint like a child”. To create what matters, we must let go of what it means to “create well”. The heart loves what she loves, but in a world like this she’s right to be concerned.
2. Why did it take so long to embrace making my own art? It wasn’t lack of skill, time or motivation, although perhaps smatterings of each showed up at different times. I believe now it was this: An unwillingness to let go of capability. I held on to capability like a child does their favourite blanket.
3. I wonder sometimes what lost opportunities and sufferings are linked to capability. I think of all my women, see all the things my women hold. All they’re capable of holding. The home, the family, the work, so many duties involved to care. I’ve witnessed capability carving a trail of expectation, of self and of other. The expectation things will be looked after. The trust that can arise, complacency even, in the assumption of things just getting done. And what’s more, those things, they do get done. The capable make sure of it.
4. What does a lifetime of being necessarily capable mean for creativity? To let myself learn, to try something new, to create, I had to allow myself to begin a practice for which I had no proficiency or skill. To carry on amidst uncomfortability. To sit in the newness of creating is to sit in the absence of capability. An explorer who made it all this way, and now you’ve lost your map.
5. When you come to associate capability in this moment (and this moment, and this moment) as intrinsic to survival, anything which takes you outside of your zone can be perceived as a threat, no matter how low stakes it all appears to be. Threat can be just putting pen to paper.
6. Creativity, by design, involves a consistent loss of capability. It’s an exercise in risk taking. When we embark on a practice we understand to be creative, we have no guarantees, no certainty of what we will uncover when we reach the other side.
7. To create then is to negotiate with risk. But what- assuming we are living in a place where freedom of expression is assured- are we risking? I know if I draw this bird or write this essay that my person still is safe the other side. Instead: I am risking my understanding of myself. I am risking not proving myself wrong about all the things I’m worried I may or may not be.
8. Creative risk sits in a very particular place in our nervous system. Its position depends on our perspective. In the creatively blocked, fearful or concerned, this risk relates both to a loss and gain. The loss: of our solidity of the projection of who we are, and what we know ourselves to be capable of. The gain: of the possibility of who we might become, and what more that we could do. Both restriction and expansion can feel dangerous.
9. What’s more: our concerns about the creative process are valid. Creativity is a threat to your survival: the survival of the person you are now. This is the nature of the process: a continual willingness to let go of who you are, and to find yourself anew, amidst words or paint or colour. The creative becoming.
10. What might it mean to be creatively confident? Perhaps to treat our identity as a verb. To take consistent action on what moves us despite the unknown outcomes. To grow the edges of our skin to develop the capacity for complexity. A regulated nervous system is one that embraces the complex. That invites conversations with the unfamiliar and with nuance.
11. What is it we should practice, to move towards creative efficacy? To develop emotional understanding, a process that can be strangely unintuitive. To know that challenging emotion is not a measure of capacity or possibility. To expect discomfort and not mistake it for a lack of creative potential. To learn how to interrupt the patterns that disrupt you and grant yourself right of return. To value the intangible parts of the process, the seeming wastes of time. Knowledge that doesn’t erase the hard parts, but its awareness extends grace, a way to move on through.
12. What is art if not taking the energy of the unknown and creating shape and form? A process that we must allow to happen.
The above contemplations arose from a place of curiosity. As of this moment, I have a robust, daily practice of art making. In truth, I’d be lost without my sketchbook. It’s the one place that truly brings me solace. So why, I’ve often asked myself, did it take me so long to start to draw?
What I’ve shared with your here is the closest to an answer I’ve found so far.
If your relationship with creative risk is holding you back- especially if it’s involved to starting to draw- you're not alone. Picking up a pencil can feel unexpectedly vulnerable (speaking from experience).
Next week, I’m teaching a 5 Day Creative Challenge, that does exactly what is written on the box:
It’s designed for people who (may be) like you: curious, hesitant, and convinced they “can’t draw.”
If you’re lurking in the corner and would like to start drawing and making art, consider this is your low-pressure, joyful, no-perfection-required invitation to finally start. All you need is a little bit of time and a pencil.
I’d love to see you there! You can learn all about it here.
xx Jane
This is great, Jane! I’m going to check out the 5 day challenge…
Love this!