Creative Living with Jamie Episode 278:
Embracing Yourself As An Artist
What would be different if finally you embraced yourself as an artist? What if there was a creative path that involved no gatekeepers, one that was just one decision away?
Take It to Your Journal
Here are some journal questions from today’s episode
- What would happen if you fully embraced that have always been an artistic soul?
- What were the signs that were always there that signaled you were creative at heart?
- What will help you accept that you are an artist?
- What will be different when you do?
Resources & Mentions
- The Studio Yearbook
- Anne Truitt’s Daybook
- Join the Studio and receive our current bonus of 5 Free Creative Practice Workshops!
- Find me on Instagram and YouTube
Transcript
Introduction
Welcome to Creative Living with Jamie. I’m your guide Jamie Ridler and on this podcast you and I are going to go on a great many adventures together. We’ll explore all aspects of what it means to live a creative life and we’ll embrace ourselves as artists. We’ll get curious, will wonder and we’ll follow inspiration. We’ll wrestle with tough questions and we’ll brave challenges and sometimes will ask our friends for help. Along the way we will discover our courage, our confidence, ourselves and one another. We’ll come to know our artistic hearts and from there we will create. And that’s when the magic happens.
Episode
Hey there! I wanted to start off this week by saying thank you to all the people who let me know they are so excited about the podcast coming back. I am thrilled to hear it and I’m so glad to be back too. Yay!
Now I mentioned in the new trailer that, at least for the first little while, it’s just going to be you and me. There are so many things that I want to share and I want to share them directly with you.
So let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.
OK corny, I know. I know. I know. But my mom loved the Sound of Music and so there we have it.
I think we should start by thinking a little bit about creative living, about what it means to live a creative life and to live as a creative and not only what it means, but also why it matters.
I’ve been coaching creative people for almost 20 years, and one of the things I’ve witnessed again and again is the great sense of freedom and relief that people experience when they just allow themselves to finally accept that they are creative by nature, when they just let themselves be.
What would happen if you fully embraced that you are and always have been an artistic soul?
Maybe that means you were always drawn to writing or painting or puppets or poetry. It might also mean you were sensitive to stories, that you noticed colours that you got lost in music. Maybe it means you love diving down rabbit holes and following your curiosity, always learning, always exploring. What does it mean to you?
What were the signs that were always there that signaled you were creative at heart?
Take some time to journal that out or find a supportive friend to talk it out. If you want to put me on pause and do it, put me on pause.
So many of us started out that way and then it seems that even though we had a creative spirit somewhere along the line, we got the message that art, whatever the medium, wasn’t for us, it was only for the “gifted”. It was only for the “talented” (Can you hear my air quotes?” It was only for the skinny ones or the pretty ones, or the teachers favourite.
As school became more and more focused on gaining a career, the arts continued to become less and less accessible.The gatekeepers became fiercer and fiercer along the way. The positions became fewer and fewer. Better to be smart and get an English degree or learn accounting or, well, pretty much anything else than pursue your art. Maybe, if you really insist on sticking with the arts you could be a teacher.
Another thing that sometimes happens is that we’re allowed some of the arts, but not all. It’s like it was OK for us to so, but not to sing. We could knit but forget about dancing. Chances are whenever we were allowed, it was because it was either useful, like you were making something practical like sewing your kids’ clothes, or it was play, something you did if you managed to have some free time, after you had done all the things you really needed to do.
But I want to tell you that there is a whole world in between. Society has really given us an extremely limited view of what it means to be creative, what art can mean in our lives and what it means to be an artist, to live a creative life.
The truth is there are millions of artists out there living in entirely different reality.
There are people out there dedicating their hearts and souls, their energy, their resources, their love, their passion, their creativity, their thought to putting on theatre, to singing in bars, to writing memoirs, to going on photo shoots to mastering an instrument, to painting up a storm, to learning carpentry.
Their work matters in a deep and profound way.
It is how they express their spirit in the world. Art, in whatever form, is how they understand themselves and how they relate to the world. It’s what they’re called to do, and they answer whether they’re paid for it or not. Whether anyone else gets it or not, they build a body of work that comes out of their very heart. They show up and learn and revel and struggle and create because it is who they are, because it is what they do.
This is available to you.
Giving your time, your effort, your resources to art because it calls you is a valid and meaningful creative path. I call it the path of devotion. Maybe you’re on it already. Maybe the idea is new to you.
Consider the thought: What if there is a deep and meaningful path for you and your art that has no gatekeepers?
That is one decision away, the decision to declare that you are an artist and making your work matters.
I’ll leave you with that thought, but just before I go, I want to give you a little bit of studio news.
Studio News
We’re just about coming up to spring and that means it’s time for the Spring studio yearbook. The yearbook is a fill in the blank creative journal designed to help you bring your creativity to life this season. You’ll learn to look for inspiration, acknowledge your achievements and bring powerful focus to the way you spend your days. You’ll tune into the rhythms of the season and you’ll dream under the full moon.
This simple journal holds all the practices I have personally followed to build and live my creative life. I know it will support you in creating yours. Check it out over it openthedoor.ca.
One Last Thing
OK, one last thing before I go, I’m going to leave you with a quote to noodle on. It’s from Anne Truitt’s wonderful memoir Daybook: “I’m not sure that I can grow as an artist until I can bring myself to accept that I am one.”
So gentle listener, what will help you accept that you too are an artist. What will be different from the moment you do? Have a beautiful week in your studio and remember, your life is your studio. I’ll see you next time.
