Since I was a little girl, I've always lived in a swirl of creative imaginations. Born to two fairly pragmatic parents, I was always a bit of a head-scratcher to them. That's not to say they weren't supportive of my creative endeavors. In retrospect, I can imagine it was difficult to understand why their young daughter "needed" endless jars of buttons, pencils, half-burned candles, dried flowers, etc, etc. And the endless stacks of journals and sketch books and canvas may have seemed excessive, but they gave me that confused nod anyway, and smiled their way through it. When I was young I happily and wholeheartedly threw myself into every wave of artistic notion that wandered through my mind. I drew and painted without concern of anything but the simple joy of putting color on paper. I happily pasted collections of found objects together, playing with their colors and textures and sizes, without ever questioning the practicality of such a thing. I was constantly drawn to paint tubes, bolts of textiles and cloth, glass panels, textures of river rock and stones, metal wire, handmade paper, glossy photographs, and every other beautiful piece of our everydays that could be made into art.
As I "grew up" and learned the "right" way to do things, I dove headfirst into every artistic medium I could get my hands on. While my interests stayed wide open, unfortunately, my mind did not. I started thinking I needed to do things the same way that those who've gone in front of me have done them. I became distracted and discouraged by the outside voices. The ones that said, "Why don't you ever focus on anything?" "Why can't you finish something before you start the next project?" "Do you really think you can be good at everything?" "Do you really need all this junk?" And in the midst of intended compliments of my talent, the overwhelming opinion seemed to be that I was just not focused and that I lacked direction. Of course I loved drawing and painting, but that did not lessen my passion for photography or sculpture. I still loved doing the native beadwork I learned from my family, and that in no way took away from my desire to write, or do glass mosaics. Why did I have to focus on one thing? Why did I have to limit myself to one medium?
After years of college and travel and work, I found myself in a constant state of creative frustration. Longing to throw myself into the old creative waves of my childhood, but feeling limited by my self imposed constraints of what I should and should not do. Then one day I found myself in a conversation that would change my life. It's those unlikely moments that change our lives that I love the most. I was talking to another artist who expressed struggling with the same thing I was. She loved creating collages, and she loved painting, and she loved collecting flowers and mushrooms and rocks and putting them together in unexpected ways. As she shared her passion for all these things, for the first time I saw how they fed each other. I realized that my creative interests are cyclical. That they feed and motivate each other. When I try to limit and manipulate my creativity, I suffocate all of it entirely. So, when I start to journal an idea for an article, I am inspired to take those ideas and see them visually. I gather images to sketch, which inspires ideas for photography projects. And in looking at my photo galleries, I see color combinations that cry out to become paintings and mosaics and collages. Creativity, by it's very nature, cannot be limited or controlled. And how it expresses itself through me does not have to be relegated to one particular form. I can't begin to say what freedom this new found philosophy gave me. Actually it was not a new idea. It was a very old idea. It is the same thing that every child with a crayon in their hand already knows. They draw for the simple joy and pleasure of drawing. They paste different colored papers to each other because it's fun. They required no special instruction or critique or artistic philosophy. It's already in them. It's in all of us.
It's this exact freedom of expression that motivates me now. I believe that we are created in the image of the One who created us. And, being a Creator Himself, we are in turn, creative beings. What could be possible in this world if we all just gave into our creative natures, and "flew off the handle" and thought without limits? What if we looked at the world without the constraints of what we think others are thinking. Why does it matter what "they" think? Who are "they" anyway? Now my goal is to create and live and worship and love without worrying about what "they" are thinking. But I do eagerly invite all of "them" to do the same, and live with me in some kind of childish freedom.
So, now I find myself in my early thirties, a divergent artist. Joyfully incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, and completely resigned to creative unpredictability. A lover of all things creative and beautiful and intriguing and inspiring. A searcher and lover of truth and questions and theories and ideas. I look forward to sharing what I'm working on, and thinking about, and mulling over, and pulling my hair about. My creative process is often messy and illogical, but it is my way, and I'm ready to embrace it. So welcome to my divergent world. Where the only question asked now is "why not?"
