The Sensation of Creativity

It's been a minute, it's great to be back

I haven’t read much since about 1995. I write, I listen to podcasts, watch movies and yet reading has been a challenge for me since I was a child. It’s mostly due to the voices, ok that sounds a bit extreme but you see, I have a busy mind with a lot of thoughts, concerns, doubts and ideas so reading is something that doesn’t come easily or quietly.

Many have suggested audiobooks and I keep downloading the Apps but alas still haven’t got round to the actual listening. I buy books, I adore books, I look at them, hold them, I yearn to read them but again nothing - yet! I’m hedging on the fact that as my kids grow and I slow my devouring of the written page era will begin.

Ok so we’ve established I don’t read much (and isn’t it a crack in the curb of being a woman that we feel we have to subtext our words but here I am!!!) I say all this because the following principles may well be in the world living and breathing already. I don’t pertain to be filled with original thought, however for me it was much like opening the next door of an advent calendar to the countdown of understanding ‘me’.

As I lay in bed late last night unable to sleep as a small herd of feline elephants engaged in fight club on the roof above my room and the giggles of a sleepover from across the hall kept me from resting dots started connecting in my tired mind.

I’m often asked how I stay creative, how I keep going through changes and blocks, through busy times and mundane days. And so often I get stumped, I can talk about where I go - near water, about what I use - my phone to start with and yet these are simply the external moving parts to my process and not the internal forces that keep the free flow going.

S E N S A T I O N A L C R E A T I V I T Y

How do I stay creative? I stay tuned in, awake and engaged.

Right now Motherhood is how I stay creative. It is both an inspiration for and antidote to the exhaustion. What’s that saying ‘if you want something done, ask a busy person’. It also feels like a natural time for creativity to thrive because we are already in motion, we are using all our senses.

Our hearing becomes a tool of awareness and readiness for danger and those in need. Our touch heightened to hot, cold, bumpy skin, wet clothes and ‘Mum there’s something in my shoe’. Our eyes watching for ourselves and also the small feet and their path, hands and small objects all around us, heads to bump and socks to match. Sounds, maybe too loud, too quiet, too aggressive, too baby-ish or not ‘I don’t like this Mum’. And feelings, so many feelings.

The list is endless, our senses are dialled up, so the transition to creativity for many is a fluid one, we pick up a camera, a pen, a pencil and we begin.

We start downloading onto the page, the sensor or dare I say into the cake mixture. We consider the light around us, the colours, the ingredients, the taste, the timing, the process. We just do. We make. We create.

How do I keep creating?

Well, I keep creating.

How do I unblock, or find time? I’ve come to know the senses I need to engage and just do;

I know movement helps, walking, driving even washing up.

I know music helps, after all, how many dancers dance without the rhythm of song or beat.

I know the raw ingredients help, camera in hand or slung over my shoulder ready. A chef can imagine a recipe and yet to begin the process of creation, there must be fresh, frozen, chopped or diced morsels to blend.

I know talking helps. I am a verbal processor, I love to share my ideas, to talk things through, to listen, to bounce ideas and free the traps of my mind and doubt by engaging in conversation.

I know coffee helps, not being too hungry helps and having warm comfort on my feet helps. And if it’s warm already, to be barefoot.

I know that if these things are tended to, and pretty much all of them are easy to achieve as they are routine, daily things I do for myself every day anyway, then creativity can happen.

The last and most fundamental one for me in fact is this;

I know how to manage my expectations.

I know that every thought, idea, first glance has to begin with a mark, a sketch, a first brushstroke or sentence. I know that that first mark will almost certainly NOT be a masterpiece or part of it. It’s simply the first step out of the front door and down the drive before the run, it’s the flour on the bench, the warming of our muscles and wave of emotion to begin the dance.

Creativity IS multi-sensory. It doesn’t surprise me that so many fellow creatives are being diagnosed with ADHD, I haven’t been but I know there is something there.

Creativity is energy. It is in the making and the doing.

If you are blocked, like I was with my Substack, ask yourself this - am I stuck in the thought of creativity, in the static scroll of social media, in the fear of that first mark, that stumble as our body finds its rhythm again or that mess on the kitchen bench.

If so, perhaps shift into the idea that creativity is movement itself. Even if it’s quiet movement of holding yourself still while you take a photograph or sketching a flower. The idea of creativity is the extension of ourselves, the pen or camera simply the tool to help us channel what we see and how we feel. The creation is a translation of our experience, our emotion and our needs.

Being creative is not something we can or can’t do, it’s a state of mind. It’s a way of being, moving, freeing our thoughts and sensing the world.

The fun part - journeying to find the tool which most suits our disposition be it the pen, paintbrush, camera, whisk, music, wrench, saw or bricks and mortar.

It’s great to be back, peeking light from the darkness once more.

CW x