Today I have my friend of over 20 years, Richard Savage visiting and guest blogging with me. Ric is an interesting person with a variety of life experiences to share. Today, he’s here to talk about something the two of us have talked about many times during our online chats, basically the role being creative plays in keeping us positive, healthy, and happy.
As an author, publisher, and artist (and creator of the picture above) Ric has a lot of insight into creativity so I’ll step back and let him take over from here.
Take it away Ric…
Could it be, that the fact that we are being creative makes us feel better about the stresses of daily life?
I started helping others with their art over twenty years ago. My rather shaky start to teaching was helping a class build their skills, working on their proficiency using materials and helping them to see the form of objects and use light and shade to reproduce shapes. Of course, that is still the foundation of any art class, but over time I began to realize that along with developing skills, the key to any good art group is a nurturing environment. There is a vulnerability when you show your art to fellow class members. From that trust, bonds grow, and your community of artists becomes a safe place where you can talk about both your art and every other topic under the sun.
Until recently I had forgotten that my mother always said that when I was a child, she could tell my state of health, by my creative output. It meant skiving off school was difficult; she could always tell if I was faking an illness by whether I was drawing or not. My mother’s words took on a greater meaning for me in my adult life. I had not considered my mental health and my creativity were connected.
Due to over work I suffered from a bout of burnout. I found the symptoms both physically and emotionally draining, and it profoundly affected my creative abilities. My initial instinct was to hide away, but rather than backing away from art, I decided to continue teaching the people I had been working with for several years. I found that sharing the issues I was having, gave the group a place where they could share too. I discovered that most of the members in my group had experienced similar problems.
More and more I see art and creativity as a part of general wellbeing. My personal belief, working, and teaching practice, is that there are no rights or wrongs to art, in fact no rules at all. It is just a matter of personal preference. We all like different styles of art. You might like the atmosphere created in a Jack Vettriano painting or the soft impressions of a Monet picture. You might like the immediacy of a van Gogh or the considered surrealism of Salvador Dali.
When painting, crafting or generally creating, it is less about what you do and much more about enjoying doing it. I would love to hear your views on the role creativity plays in your own mental and physical health.
Richard Savage is an artist, author, publisher and teacher of art. You can contact him to order prints of his work or to discuss commissioning a work of your own, or speak to him about one of his online classes at ric@swage.net
Today I’m linking up with Happiness is Homemade, Inspire Me Monday, November 2023 Edition – The Hearth and Soul Link Party – April J Harris, and The Happy Now Blog Linkup.
We’ve talked a lot over the years about creativity and the role it plays in our lives.
I see being creative as part of the soul’s work. Given that, it’s no wonder that we feel less than good when we move away from our creativity. We’re in a sense moving away from the deeper part of ourselves when we move away from our creative practices.
Do you have any creative practices that you do when you feel yourself drifting away from your creativity? I find I feed my inspiration…sometimes that’s looking at fabric or reading other people’s blogs or visiting a quilt show.
Readers, what do you do to keep your creativity humming along in tip-top shape?