I did not make hearts for Valentines

I have been thinking about this post for some time, turning words over, jotting some things down and composting my ideas and honing what I want to say.

This morning I read a piece by Clarissa Pinkola Estés on her Facebook page: Valentine Is A Dirty Scruffy Cherub. There are many potent lines in her piece, as always, but today the sentence that spoke to me, inspired me, flicked a switch and stoked the fire in me was this:

"Few artists and creators I’ve known have ever brought forth work of depth by strategizing money first, and meaning second."

Yes! I needed to hear that!

Or maybe it isn't that I needed to hear that, maybe I needed to be reminded that it's OK for me to do my creativity and express myself with freedom, rather than with money in mind. Of course I like to make a living and have food to eat and a roof over my head, but my philosophy about my art, and about art and creativity in general, is that the end product speaks for itself after the creative process has done its thing. I feel there is a tainting, or a disconnection, when the focus on the end result is money, rather than a focus on creating and playing and expressing oneself while bringing something into being.

Over the years I have noticed that there are people who attach to my creativity and want to help, even though I have not asked for help - and may not need any help. Their way of appreciating my talents is to make suggestions and tell me what I "should" make, and sometimes they even tell me why, in their minds, I "should" make it. Most times these suggestions come from a genuine wish to help, but it takes energy for me to detach from the suggestions, and sometimes more energy to detach from the insistence that I follow their advice and make the things they think I "should" make. It takes energy to step back onto my own path and wrap the suggestions up in a handful of salt and throw ithem over my left shoulder and continue my creative journey.

Sometimes, of course,  a suggestion resonates with me and it feels like a good one for me and I may even run with it, but this creative soul needs the freedom to let go of suggestions and "you shoulds" and make her own path.

Space, detachment and freedom are all linked with each other, you might even think they are just different ways of saying the same thing - or it might be that hearing it one way is words on a page and hearing it another way is exactly what you needed to hear today. Or it might even be that none of them are helpful to you, if so add them to the salt and throw them over your shoulder for luck and carry on with your adventure.

How do you feel when someone tries to tell you what you should do with your creativity?

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For me, detachment is similar to space, but with added intent or proactivity in its acquirement.

You can define a creative space, or build a creative space, or go to a creative space and lock the world out of your creative space and yet as you sit down and address your medium - whether it is clay, or a pencil, or oil paints, or a keyboard, or a flute - you may find that you still have company.

You may find that you are still hearing your inner critic playing and replaying those tapes, some of them decades old, that tell you "you aren't good enough," or "you don't know how," or "you need help," or "you can't." Those voices may be people you know, or have known, or they may be your own voice conditioned to condition you and put you down, rather than support you.

This is where the creative soul can practise detachment, practise letting the tapes run in the background whilst still picking up the medium and beginning.

I am sitting with a box of beads today. I am finishing them off with sandpaper and lacquer, and it strikes me that the beads, and the clays they came from, do not judge me. They have nothing to say, good or bad, they simply wait for me to pick them up and express myself in them. They do not care whether what they become is art, or a learning curve, or failure. They simply are.

A creative soul needs detachment to be in the creative space and pick up the medium and begin. A creative soul needs her support team, or community, to detach from their wants/needs/vision/wishes for her and who they think she should be as an artist or solopreneur.

How do you create detachment from judgement and embrace your medium?

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