Remembering My Creativity: A Personal Share About 2016

I've spent the last couple of hours searching old sd cards of my creations for an art project I'm doing. It was a bizarre feeling to look through these teeny tiny things that hold the entire history of my connection to my muse. 

It left me very reflective over many things I've been dealing with this year, a battle (or perhaps several battles in a larger war) that has been raging between my creativity and I. (I also stumbled across some pictures of a half naked ex boyfriend which I suppose didn't help my mood either lol). 

You see I've had a tough year emotionally. I've had a lot of gremlins come up internally and some hard changes externally. 

I cannot always lay my finger on what has been wrong but this year unlike any other before my creativity has not always been there for me, in fact some times it has been the source of my pain. It is really scary to share this, because I have always been an advocate for using your creativity to process tough emotions, never to use it to be the cause of them!

It is wrong to say my creativity has not always been there for me in the sense that I 'lost it' because that's not the case, it's just some times I've just not wanted to access my creativity because of how I'm feeling about it. 

It's a new level of understanding this complex relationship that seems to hold more layers and nuisances than any person-to-person relationship I've ever had.  

Looking through the sd cards today I saw times when I had no clue what my creativity and I were doing together, but we did it anyway. I saw times when I knew exactly what I was doing and still got surprised by the outcome. I saw times when I did not think I was showing up at all but my creativity still took itself for a spin anyway. 

I saw a really thick and rich history, and it was gorgeous to remember it all, first mentally, then emotionally and then through my hands with this RAW Intuitive Journal page:

RAW Intuitive Journaling is all about connecting with your creativity through your intuition and a useful tool for process emotions through art. I have a class on this which you can find out more about it on my art community here:

http://journalworkshops.ning.com/page/raw-intuitive-class

(or if you're not a member of my community site you can read about it on Etsy here:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/221489763)

In doing this RAW page I was reminded that I know this thing that is creativity, I know it, well. I actually know thousands of techniques and sooooo many processes. I can run rings around any magician for tricks up their sleeve.

It's kinda hard to see the layers via these pictures but through the surfaces of quickened scribbles and scraped on gesso I focused on what it was that I was really feeling and was ready to write with my paint markers.

The words on the page say

Wondering:

I'm beyond where I thought I was

And I'm wondering where to take that.

What's coming is kinda sorta amazing.

And it'll teach me right for forgetting to be amazed.

There's also something in there about getting my confidence back, so I guess what I'm really happy to say is...I finally think I see the bright colours of my creativity through the thick fog of emotions again! 

And on top of that understand what this new twist to my relationship has taught me (for one thing: to remember to be amazed!). 

I remembered that when I want to meet my creativity it is never as hard as I've been making it out to be. In fact it's easy, because... well I know it, 

I know it well. 

I hope if you ever are at this juncture of your relationship with creativity you'll remember this too. What helped me get here is following the steps I shared in this article I recently wrote about 'Dealing with Creative Demotivation'.

Thanks for reading

Love, an artist who just re-remembered her creativity