Here’s the pattern I’ve been wrangling with lately — tell me if you relate:
I have an idea for something I’d like to share / try / do.
For example:
LCN 099: Manifesto of Creative Entitlement
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It happened again. A very thoughtful, kind, well-meaning person referred to me as “gifted.”
Actually, she referred to me as “multi-gifted.” In the context of sharing me and my work with her community.
It was a lovely, generous expression, and I’m grateful for the generous and loving intention behind it.
But I confess it also frustrates me at the same time.
Because calling me out as “multi-gifted” may lead people to think that creativity is something that inheres in me, in my “special giftedness.”
And that is not true.
And yet, people believe it to be true.
People believe that creativity resides only in special, “gifted” individuals.
And the more people believe that, the less likely they are to see creativity as residing in themselves. To see themselves as containers for creative possibility.
And my ENTIRE MESSAGE is that each and every human on the planet is [Read more…]
LCN 034: From the Way-Back Machine to the Creative Sandbox
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Today I want to take a little trip in the way-back machine, back to the year I turned 23.
Chapter One
I was teaching at a nursery school in the Berkeley hills that year. I had recently graduated from college, and was flailing about, really unsure what I wanted to do with my life. [Read more…]
The Real Difference Between Artists and Everyone Else
The only difference between artists and everyone else is that artists never lost their natural-born entitlement to create. Or if they lost it, they were able to find it again.
The beautiful thing is that we were ALL born with that ability, that entitlement, that love of exploring and creating, and no matter what age you lost it–7, 12, 18, 29–you can reclaim it at any time, at any age.
It’s yours for the taking. All you have to do is [Read more…]
You Think THIS Means You’re Not a Real Artist?
You know those creators who just crank stuff out like they’re breathing it? The ones who say, “I paint/write/make music/build macaroni sculptures because I can’t NOT paint/write/make music/build macaroni sculptures! It’s like air to me — I’d die without it!”?
If you’re NOT that person, this post is for you.
(The rest of you can go on your merry way. I’ll be back soon with another post that is for you, too.)
“Geez, louise, I’m not like that,” you think, [Read more…]
