On Making Art

I have been working on something for a while now.  In fact, it was supposed to be an anniversary gift for my husband.  I had budgeted some time to sit down and work on it when Andy was going to be conveniently out of town.  After I had gotten the rest of my materials, he told me that he would be back a day early.  So I thought, "Okay, I can still be done in time."  Then, I had a church obligation and thought, "Well, I can crank through if I really knuckle down."  And THEN, my dear, sweet husband gleefully informs me that he'll actually be home in the middle of the week between sites.  Mentally, I threw my hands up.  Thus, with no feasible deadline, I've only just finished it now.  

Here it is, in charcoal.  

Airbrushed in a sense, but at least it's sort of us.

It's a bit generous in some senses, but at least we still look like us for the most part.  For reference, here's the original picture.

Us, in our goofy glory, hand included in the frame in everything.

I'm pleased with the result, overall.  Feeling rather pleased, actually.  Enough to say that, yes, I have a little talent.  When people have stopped by the house recently, I had heard more than once that people were surprised--they didn't know I could draw.  I took a single drawing class in college and otherwise enjoy a good doodle, but I am by no means a professional.  I will always have much better luck copying than creating out of my mind.  That class I took allowed me to experience different  materials and forced me to actually spend time creating; thus it was a very frustrating but very rewarding term.  

I've heard it said more than once that the difference between an author and a writer is that an author has made something and is done, whereas a writer may or may not have finished something but is still creating.  Similarly, I have heard it said that talent is not nearly as important as perseverance and practice.  

Yes, I have some small talent in drawing, but I don't pursue it, except on the odd occasion.  I like to think that I have some talent writing and I choose to exercise that.  I may or may not have more talent than others.  I may have less.  Someone that has talent and is not putting something new into the world is not an artist, as opposed to someone who may not have much talent but is still putting new things into the world.  In other words, creating overall is more important than the quality.  That being said, creating quantity for the sake of quantity isn't really art.  Instead, make quality to the best of your ability.  The best of YOUR ability is not the best of someone else's.  It is very easy trap to fall into, judging your work by everyone else's, but that is not how art is measured.  

I have heard many people tell me that they are "just not creative."  Mostly, I find that this is a result of limited definitions of "creative."  Perhaps when you try to draw a dog it looks like a platypus and your stick figures are sad at best (**cough** Andy **cough**), but putting together a meal still takes creativity.  Maybe you cannot sculpt something other than a snake/worm/un-inflated balloon, but you enjoy singing for the sake of singing, still putting art into the world.  Or maybe you can't carry a tune to save your immortal soul, but you have a unique way of wording things.  Perhaps your writing is incoherent and hackneyed, but you enjoy taking pictures of everything or you make up interpretive dances to ridiculous pop lyrics.  Maybe you can't paint anything other than a wall but you can sew/crochet/knit something new by following a pattern.  How you decorate your house, how you solve problems, how you cobble together a make-shift tool out of what you have, all of these and more involve creativity.  In science and mathematics, there is a different kind of logic, but it, too, requires creativity in its application--think about designing an experiment to test your hypothesis or what equations you would need to solve the particular problem at hand.  

The point is people express creativity differently.  We use elements of it in our day-to-day lives, but many people have managed to tell themselves that because they are not a professional artist, they are not creative.  The pursuit of adding something new into the world, of making art, is more important than being good at it.  Practice your art.  Find freedom in making something new.  And the best you can do is certainly good enough.