My Compass is Creativity
About ten years ago I realized I had a deep desire to feel more connected to my creative spirit. At the time, I felt blighted; disconnected after years of passively nudging at the edges of my chosen field at the time, graphic design. The satisfaction of doing that job had never met my expectations, and I had little confidence in myself as a designer in a rapidly changing digital design landscape. I had worked some jobs, then gone freelance while we moved across the world, raised our child, and weathered economic downturns and setbacks as new parents, immigrants, and business outsiders.
There is nothing that erodes creativity as much as desperation, and we were desperate for traction in our business and in life. It took some doing, but after years of struggle, our situation seemed to even out. By then, I had lost my desire to continue as a designer. The hours were long, the pay terrible, the clients worse. I needed a reset and I found it in the simple act of making a career change to writer.
Which brings me back to ten years ago . . .
It took articulating my creative process to discover I am guided by a compass of creative intent, strategy and perspective. I indie-published a book — a manifesto, if you will — which distilled my thoughts on how these three pillars of creative output interact in every aspect of my own creative journey. My next thought was: could this apply to other creatives too?
The book focused on helping other creative people discover their own spirit, and to hold a mirror to their processes to discover how and why they do the things they do. And even though I unpublished it after a few years* the principles of the exercise, and the developed work on those pages have stayed with me.
Discovering one’s own creative compass takes time and plenty of introspection, but also a self-awareness as you work. Building on and expanding your understanding of creativity and your own, unique creative voice is incredibly useful. There are so many ways that knowledge can inform process, interactions and lead to success or failure.
Over time, I’ve worked on re-imagining the message I attempted to deliver in that first book. I want to use some space on my website platform to address creative directly so that they have an opportunity to learn and discover their own creative compass through what I share. It is in the sharing that we often discover nuances we’ve missed, or see new approaches to things that we struggle with. Creativity in community enriches and supports. I hope to offer support and learn in equal measure.
As mentioned earlier, I was a graphic designer for many years. I have not been a writer for as many, and I believe there is still so much about this new path on my creative journey that I have yet to learn from. Writing is a passion, much more than design ever was, and I have embraced it with enthusiasm and an open mind because I did no formal training in it, but rather came to it in degrees, lapping up knowledge from peers and professionals alike over the past twelve years.
I know a few things about my WRITING creative compass already:
- The INTENT is to communicate in a way that makes a profound affect on my readers.
- My STRATEGY is to learn everything there is to know, but also to defer to expertise when in doubt, or needing peer feedback.
- My PERSPECTIVE is that writing is an art form of the most infectious kind. No matter if writing is good or bad, it will be shared — it’s in our DNA to share stories. And as a medium, words are the most personal of all because they create worlds in our minds that are ours alone to enjoy.
What to expect from me: I will write new stories/articles once or twice a month for my art subscribers, encourage civil and polite feedback, and offer replies as I am able to. I will cover everything from my own experience, give insights into creativity (as I see it), and ask you to take the time to explore your own creative experience in much the same way. I hope that by the time I reach the end of this series of topics (don’t worry, there’s plenty to discuss, so I’m not going anywhere!) that everyone who has read my stories finds themselves thinking about their creative journey and processes with greater clarity.
*As a new author, Authentic Creativity had much room for improvement which I felt better suited to private reflection, revision and realignment in a more appropriate format.
