My Relationship with Creativity

How my creativity has morphed as I've aged and what to expect from this newsletter

Creativity.

Such a weighted word in our society. Do you identify as creative? We’re raised to associate creativity with the traditional art forms—drawing, painting, music. And if you don’t “fit” with these as a child then you’re taught to feel that you aren’t creative. Or artistic, anyway. You’re instead an athlete. Or a brainiac. Or a math wizard. 

This is how it felt for me as a kid. I can’t remember when I first placed myself in that box as “not the artistic type.” Instead I was the straight A student who excelled at anything with instruction. I definitely remember expressing myself creatively as a child, adolescent, teenager, and even young adult. But society’s conception of “creative” still had me placing myself in a box, even until recently.

Case in point, look at what came up when I Googled the definitions of “creativity” and “artistic”¹: 

Creativity - the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.

Ok, I can get behind this (although some would argue that there's no such thing as an original idea, but that’s neither here nor there). 

We use our imagination in a lot of things. Now how about “artistic”? What's that mean?

Artistic - having or revealing natural creative skill

Hmm, ok. This just refers back to creativity, which refers to artistic so we’re kind of going in a circle here. But fine, I accept this definition. 

Now let’s look at it used in a sentence. Right there, beneath the definition. Oxford’s example of the use of the word artistic quite literally says “my lack of artistic ability.” 

Are you kidding me?! That’s the example we put out into the universe? No wonder I have felt the way I do.

Inspired by this podcast episode and my proclamation to “unleash my sprinkles,” it felt like a natural next step to use my second post to explore my relationship with creativity. 

So let’s dive in.

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I remember a conversation with my brother several years ago, when he shared that he kept a running list of all his ideas. My immediate reaction was, sadly, one of comparison and self-doubt as I replied, “Ideas? I don’t have any ideas!” 

Thank goodness for my brother assuring me that he’s sure I have ideas. Maybe I just don’t recognize them as such. 

This conversation came to mind recently, when I found myself thinking of writing ideas throughout the week. I heard the rational voice in my head trying to dismiss them as “silly” or “not big enough.” But this time, instead of listening to that voice, I acknowledged it and then brushed it aside. Instead choosing to honor my creative soul and simply jotting down the ideas as I had them. Who knows where they might lead?

Once you start paying attention, inspiration can often be found in the smallest of things. 

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As a kid I dabbled in a lot of creative things. Influenced by my aunt who’s a scrapbooker, I took that up as a hobby of my own. There was a good chunk of time when I was putting together scrapbook pages of my birthday parties. When I moved from Arizona to Seattle as a preteen, my friends even surprised me with a homemade scrapbook which I still have to this day.

This interest served me well later in my sorority years when we put together “21er” scrapbooks for every girl’s 21st birthday. I remember having such fun when I got to put together my best friend Julie’s book. (Someone would lead the creation of the birthday girl’s scrapbook, electing 20 women to make a page and usually filling the rest in themselves.)

I was so excited when it was my turn, in part because I got to make something pretty for someone who meant the world to me, and because it was permission to spend time being creative, amidst the chaos of school and extracurricular responsibilities. 

I also gravitated towards digital creation. My best childhood friend and I volunteered to make our elementary school graduation video in iMovie, a skill I’ve later resurrected to make a friend’s birthday video and most recently my dear aunt’s funeral video. Who knew I could get so much satisfaction out of perfectly aligning photos to music?

I had Photoshop for a long time too, dabbling in graphic design as I arranged photo collages and gave images transparent backgrounds while dipping my toe in the water of blogging. Even if the writing didn’t stick then, I remember feeling proud whenever I created something aesthetically pleasing.

School projects often necessitated creativity, even if I didn’t realize it or it wasn’t in a traditional sense. I remember fondly one elementary school assignment where we had to invent a creature that was a blend of two different animals and then create a model of it. Mine was the “hummingwolf,” a wolf-sized creature with the body of a wolf and the head of a hummingbird. (How that works physically, no idea, but that’s not the point here!)

In my sixth grade science fair I invented what I fondly called the “Bottle Bracelet,” a fabric scrunchie of sorts that one would put around their water bottle to identify which was theirs. I had a cute watermelon-printed one and a denim one with a little charm hanging off it. I must’ve used the little sewing skills I picked up from Girl Scouts to engineer these. It became quickly evident when at the science fair that my “invention” paled in comparison to the more scientific nature of others’ creations, but I was proud of it nonetheless. Love me a good alliteration.

These types of creative projects became few and far between the older I got in school. My senior year of high school, I wrote a business plan for a children’s party planning business, aptly named Petite Parties. (Told you, I love alliteration!) I think this is when the chasm started, for it was capitalizing on my creativity in the truest sense.

Flash forward to today and creativity is heralded as a skill in the workplace, in the form of using creativity to solve problems or innovate new means of value. Any creativity at work is inherently capitalist and serves someone else’s dream. 

Now I don’t mean for this to come across as all doomsday, for getting to be creative at work can be extremely valuable to one’s job satisfaction. But the problem is when that becomes your only form of creative expression. 

What does creativity look like when it’s unconstrained, done simply for you, and not for someone else? When there are no rules or time limits? 

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I often think of the kitchen as a place to express myself creatively. It’s a relationship I’ve honed over the years, as cooking used to be a means to an end. It definitely still is a lot of the time, but as I’ve gotten more comfortable and confident, I find that small improvisations or using whatever’s in the fridge to inspire what I make is creative. 

My partner and I had his family over for dinner last weekend and it was the perfect example of an artistic masterpiece. Inspired by the produce in our CSA, I used our ripe heirloom tomatoes to make a tomato tart. He made an Italian-roasted chicken and Samin Nosrat’s long-cooked vegetables with our CSA dragon langerie beans. I finished it off with a side salad using the mixed greens and carrots from our CSA.

We served it on the dining table set with matching placements, my new linen napkins, and lit candlesticks that created a beautiful light effect as the sun set on the dining room throughout the meal. It was delicious, both literally and visually! 

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As I embark on this journey to explore my creativity, my aim is to honor it by writing about things that interest me, no matter how inconsequential they may seem. So while I have ideas about topics this newsletter might cover, know that that might change. As of now, a lot of my ideas revolve around the theme of consumption, both goods and content. But I'll also cover random musings on my mind as I continue getting to know myself. 

In the spirit of the podcast that inspired this post, I’m ending with the question, what do I want my relationship with creativity to look like in the future?

I hope that in one year’s time, I’ll have committed myself to a regular writing practice. My intention is to publish something here once a week on Sundays. 

It feels scary to put that in writing, especially because I missed last Sunday, but I don’t want to let perfect get in the way of good. 

I also hope to have tried at least two other forms of art/creative activities. I’m planning on signing up for a local ceramics class this fall, something that is vastly foreign to me but exciting! I will likely share more as it unfolds.

For now, if you happen to have found me on my little corner of the internet, I’m so happy you’re here. I don’t know what I can promise or offer just yet aside from my honest intention. So if you’re here and following along, thank you!

1. Oxford Languages