Dear Creatives

 I am reading DEAR WRITER by MAGGIE SMITH (the writer and poet who also wrote the very lovely, poignant YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL). This book is tag-lined as: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. And right now, maybe I need a bit of a pep talk for my own creative life, because, with anything one creates, doubts arise: is this any good?

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about this very subject, a creative life. She’s known for a long time that my writing is important to me (she’s read one of my WIP novels), but because painting has been a recent development (only in the past few years), she assumed it was less important, a ‘hobby’ as she put it. Which immediately got me defensive. My painting is NOT a mere ‘hobby’, I exclaimed. But why did I feel the need to self-justify my art as more than a hobby?

I think we view hobbies as diversions, something we do to relax or pass the time. If you’re engaged in a hobby, people may feel it’s okay to interrupt you, ask you to set it aside to do something else that’s more pressing. It’s the kind of interruption they would not consider if, say, you were engaged in ‘paid’ work. But my creative work is not paid work (not yet, anyway), and so it is still relegated to hobby status. (Btw, there’s no one in my home to interrupt me, so that is not an issue for me). Yet, despite being unpaid, it is incredibly meaningful to me, and I try, each day, to honour and acknowledge my creative life in some way, by doing something that serves it.

As I said to my friend, painting and writing is now my way of life (as are tennis and pickle-ball and reading and travel). I went on, prattling about creating over consuming, and because she is a very good friend and we have great in-depth conversations, she listened, and this led us down another conversation path about how, as we age and retire, our focus and interests change, our way of life shifts, and creativity now begins to take center stage when previously it remained on the sidelines until we found the time.

But now, as I create (art and manuscripts and blog posts), new questions and vulnerabilities arise. If I share them, they will be judged, rejected, passed over. But in DEAR WRITER, Smith says: “It’s safer to make nothing, to put nothing into the world, because then it can’t be critiqued or judged, and there won’t be mistakes for others to witness.”  

You may be reading this blog post and thinking: I’m wasting my time reading this. But then again, you may be reading and you may be thinking of your own creativity and vulnerability. You may be thinking: I must get that book, DEAR WRITER. Or: what if I too tried to paint? Or: do I value my own creativity enough and do I prioritize it over consuming?

The truth is, I have no idea how my words (or art) are going to land. All I can do is put them out there and invite you to partake. As Smith says: “The house is yours until you invite the reader inside. After that, you share it.”

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Eudora Welty: “I like the feeling of being able to confront an experience and resolve it as art.”