Your Creative Calling
I recently found myself trapped in a maze of ‘creator’s block.’ There existed no reasoning for my rather insane shenanigans: I was an artist creating no art. In the most polite sense of the phrase I was, how you say, ‘creatively inapt’ to produce an ounce of artistic fulfillment.
With focus and fire towards the right things, you are unstoppable.
Evidence of my skill level left a trail of paintings hung on walls; intricate and stylish sketches, whose strokes rivaled both classic and modern era’s acclaimed. I was made aware that I- this long professed artist- was capable of committing concept to visual; visual to finished product. And yet, amid exhibit A through Z, I could not recall nor point to any work from recent months of creativity come to life.
Where had I, the artist, gone? And why hadn’t I given time to one of my loves?
It could be and has been one of the hardest things to confront; this, being the mere fact that no one else, no other force, could take the blame for my absence of creating in recent months. There was and has been no one to blame for this lack of productivity. Could time be the reason? Perhaps I could heap every reason on the limited amount I’ve been given with the recent swell in both my professional and personal lives. But, I’d like to think we are wise and responsible enough to make time for what we love.
I’ve often found that the mistake we blindly or pridefully make is not confronting the real reason we encounter an issue- and, as a result, we continue missing any real ability to solve the problem. When the power to settle into self, (a topic that we will explore later this month), rests upon our ability to create, there’s not a thing that should stand in our way.
Dire Dawa, Ethiopia: Ethiopia skater catching some air above two retired train cars at an old railway station. (PHOTO: www.ethiopiaskate.com)
And so, I write to you, another monologue and soliloquy of confessions, putting into practice what I preach.
“Be accountable for the creative calling you’ve been given. How else will we see our gifts move, if we ourselves do not?”
A movement laced with order and focus is the only ‘moving’ I can be a part of. Senseless movement is just as unproductive as no movement at all. Scoffing at order and the need to institutionalize its power to focus our talents, must be an integral part of our creative trajectory. Without it, the dream remains only an idea, never conceptualized or realized.
In the way of the artist is often times our inability to infuse order into our creative goals. For there to be change- the productive way- the artist must incorporate discipline, which then provides focus. Focus will fine-tune the reasons you have the gift in the first place.
Focus, (on the right elements), with the fire to create, is unstoppable.