Why is creativity important?

I'm an Artist and this is something I have asked myself many times. Other people too have asked me in puzzled tones "Why do you need to make art?" This happens even more when ideas that I try or concepts I'm exploring don't work out. Or just aren't very good. I believe that this genuine curiosity comes from a combination of the under-valuing of creativity and in general people are only consuming fully finished creative projects like movies, music and art. Their lives are filled with art and creativity, but the work and skill that goes into creating that art is invisible and undervalued. There's so much mystery around art and creativity that I can't even count the amount to times friends or people I meet at markets say to me with complete conviction "I'm not creative."

My personal belief is that everyone is creative.

I'm always shocked when some of the most creative people I know voice this belief that they aren't creative. Or that they have spent too long away from their art, their sewing or their writing. That it's too late for them to revisit those things. I believe that everyone is creative. I know that most people are not supported in exploring their creativity. They don't learn that the process of creating something looks very different than the polished end result they often consume in their day-to-day lives. Sometimes there is no end result worth showing anyone else. Most people aren't taught that this is ok. And expected.

I believe that the real benefit of creativity, of creating something that previously wasn't there, is in the process itself.

In exploring the process of learning something new, of exploring new techniques, new concepts, this is where we learn. We learn the skills and techniques, yes, but we also learn more that that. Through the process of making something, you are making decisions, committing through each action a clear path forward. Sometimes you realise that you made the wrong creative decision or you aren't happy with the outcome, and you learn more. Each time you make something, you take the things you have learned, the decisions you have made, your growing skill, your previous creations, and you carry that forward with you. To whatever you create next.

When you make something, you learn about making something, but you also learn about yourself.

You learn to recognise your own beliefs, your own creative voice, your own internal compass gets louder and easier to hear. You learn about the world and how you want to engage in it. You rediscover old creative loves and find new things that light you up inside. Sometimes you learn that actually tiny little watercolours no longer light you up, but you are feeling called to create big, bright acrylic abstracts now instead.

Creativity and a regular creative practice in my life is not only important, it's vital.

I had to develop a creative practice as an act of survival. I now know as a late-diagnosed AuDHD woman that creativity has always been a regulating force in my life. When I was overwhelmed, alone, unsupported and didn't have the skills to communicate or self-regulate, creativity was there. Whether it was journalling, writing, doddling, drawing, painting, reading, crafting, dancing, all of these things have helped me regulate at different times.

I developed a very small regular creative practice after I finished my performing arts degree and I felt lost without the regulating and organising structure of studying creativity at school. I developed my very small creative practice isolated and alone. I read and did the Artist's Way from the amazing Julia Cameron. I started morning pages. I starting painting in small bursts after a few years away. I started to write. My art was bad. I didn't really show it to anyone.

I still have boxes with small bits of my bad art in my garage. Looking back they were small acts of survival.

I was working in an office, got married and had my first child. I was a young Mum. We moved countries and I had my second child. I became a fulltime carer. My marriage and parenting was isolating. I loved my children so completely and deeply, at times it felt like I disappeared as an individual. I continued small and regular acts of creativity. I had to fit my own small creative practice in between everyone else's needs. I got up early to write my morning pages. Sketched ideas on the back of envelopes while I cooked dinner. Wrote ideas for books on a series of post it notes as I watched TV with my kids.

I was a very long way off calling myself an artist.

I now realise, for me creating isn’t a luxury. It is the thing that gets me through, when nothing else can. Making art isn’t frivolous or indulgent. Making art is vital. Making art, creating, is an act of survival. It is a rebellious act. Even bad art. Maybe especially bad art.

Making art is about connection.

Connecting to myself, to others, to something larger and more expansive.  Making art grounded me when the pressure of the world threatened to blow me apart. Making art allowed me to start to make meaning of the world around me. I had become very good at pretending that I understood the things around me in my life, that I was ok and coping, but inside I was constantly lost and struggling. First one child was diagnosed with Autism. Years later both my children would have received Autism and ADHD diagnoses. It took years more for me to finally receive my own diagnosis.

Often, even now, to make sense of the world around me, of myself and my own feelings, I make art (or talk it out with a supportive friend).

My Autism and ADHD diagnosis nearly two years ago started to explain why I have to process things like this. I need time. Time to figure out how I feel. To put things in context and process them. To consider other viewpoints and experiences. I got very good at doing this, to a point where this amount of work wasn't always obvious to others. But it is a lot of work. And exhausting.

I make art to self-regulate and to provide myself with time and space where I don't have to mask or work hard for acceptance.

When I'm creating something, whether it's art, writing or craft, when I'm in that flow of creating, I'm enough. And since I have spent my whole life feeling simultaneously not enough and too much, being enough feels like magic. Building connections with other neuro-divergent people often feels similar.