Episode 083: You Already Have Everything You Need to Be an Artist

Hello hello my beautiful creative soles! How are you? I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and doing what you can to feel nurtured and nourished right now. I know that life sometimes feels challenging here especially at the tail end of winter, so I just wnat to invite you to do whatever you need to take care of yourself through that and through whatever other challenges you might be experiencing, because they happen. 

Speaking of nurturing, the socks I’m wearing today are very appropriate for today’s episode, because we are about to get really deep into a gardening metaphor and I happen to be wearing gardening socks - they’re green and they have little plants and shovels and little watering cans - they’re super cute, and I’m wearing them honestly because I’m feeling pretty done with winter and channeling spring as much as I can. If you have any fun socks that help you get excited about spring, let me know what they are because I bet I’m not the only one who uses my socks as a way to get excited about the next season that’s on its way. Or perhaps I am the only one who does that and I’m just a weirdo. Which is cool too. But I also thought that these socks made a lot of sense for today’s episode like I said because we are talking about gardening today. And yes it does have a lot to do with art and creativity and being an artist.  

So today’s topic is: You already have everything you need to be an artist. 

I want you to make your art. I want your novels and your picture books and your songs and your artfully crafted meals and your beautifully styled outfits and your thoughtfully built playlists to be out in the world, making it a more beautiful and magical place. My life is made so much better by the presence of other people’s creative work, and I know that I’m not alone in that. 

Whose work is really important to you? Is there a book that inspired you to become a writer? Is there a musician who makes you feel so deliciously in touch with your feelings whenever you listen to their music? An artist who you turn to when you feel sad? A TV show that delights you? 

As humans, we connect to each other through our creativity. We uplift and inspire each other through the things that we make. Our art is meaningful. So I want you to make more of it. 

And I think when people think about why they’re not making as much art as they’d like to be or why they don’t really feel like they can step into their artist right now, the excuses are usually: I don’t have enough time, I don’t have the level of talent or skill that’s needed, I don’t have the inspiration, something like that…but the truth is I don’t believe you need any more of those things than you already have to get started. I believe you have everything within you, right now, to create the kind of art that you deeply desire to create. 

So imagine this with me: let’s get into our gardening metaphor that I alluded to. Imagine that you want to grow some zinnias. You love zinnias, you love the colors, you feel so excited to have them growing in your backyard so that you can go out and watch the bees buzzing around them. You dream of stepping outside with a pair of scissors and collecting a few fresh flowers to have in your home, to brighten your space. And, imagine that you already have the seeds for said zinnias. 

So you have a couple of options here. You could tell yourself that you don’t know how to grow flowers - that you tried once and they all died, so you must just not have a green thumb. You could tell yourself that you’re too busy right now with work and family stuff and adulting and any other responsibilities that you have, so maybe you’ll do it next year. You could tell yourself that growing flowers will work much better once you have a big garden space, so you’ll just wait until you move somewhere with a bigger yard. That’s one option. 

OR, your other option is to take the seeds that you already have, go do some Googling to learn about growing flowers from a friend who knows a little bit more than you, and then spend a few minutes a day for the next few days building a little raised bed in your small backyard. Or maybe getting a few flower pots set up. Then, you can spend a few more minutes each day planting and watering the seeds, checking on their progress, checking in with your garden-savvy friend or with the Googles to make sure things are going as they should. And you’re gardening!

Either way, you have the seeds. You can believe your excuses as to why you’re not cultivating them this season, or you can use the resources that are available to you right now to turn them into flowering, beautiful plants. You get to choose. 

Do you get the metaphor here? You have the creative seed, you have the artistic eye, the musical ear, the however your artist expresses itself, already inside of you. The resources are also around you: you have time and space and support, I bet, in some way around you - maybe you need somebody to help you notice them or use them to your fullest potential, or to their fullest potential. And maybe you need a little guidance when it comes to carving out pockets of time and space. Maybe you need to find someone who can hold you accountable to watering and caring for those creative seeds. But you have the seeds. 

I used to go to this writing group, and the leader of the group, Nerissa Nields, talked about how new creative work needs to be nurtured and not trampled. That idea and this metaphor of thinking about creativity as a garden, as plants, has always really resonated with me - probably no surprise because I love plants too - but I’ve really found so much value in having people around me who lovingly nurture my creativity. And I know that I am really lucky to have had people growing up who did nurture my creativity, and I’m very grateful for that. I know that not everyone has that to the same extent, so I just want to acknowledge that, and I am like I said so grateful for the support that I have had around my creativity. And I’m grateful for the support that I have actually sought out as an adult as well. And I think especially for those of us who have perfectionist tendencies, or who are particularly hard on ourselves, I think that having this support is so important and nourishing. Because I think a lot of us at some point have been told or been made to feel like we’re not creative enough, not talented enough, or we’re not something enough. And I think that is fully and entirely false. You are most definitely creative and talented and artistic enough and you have everything you need to create the art that you want to create. 

But a lot of us have felt trampled down by negative feedback in the past and it makes us feel discouraged. It makes us feel like we’re not talented, that we’re not real artists, and then we give up and stop trying. 

It’s also possible - and this is mostly what’s happened to me - is that you are SO good at filtering yourself before you even share something, based on what you THINK people are going to like or approve of, that you don’t even allow yourself to get to the point of negative feedback… but the thing is you’re still creating it in your head. Even if that negative feedback is not fully verbally expressed, it’s still doing its job of squashing your creativity. 

And this is why I think positive feedback is so important. It feeds and nourishes the seeds of our creativity instead of trampling them. I think it does this in two ways. First, it helps remind us of our innate gifts as the artists that we are. Not only that, but it reminds us of our worth as humans, which sounds like kind of a big topic. This is a lesson that I’ve been really learning and working with recently: this idea of really embodying the knowledge that I am worthy, regardless of what I am producing or accomplishing. This idea of knowing that my gifts and talents and the creative work that wants to come through me, which feels extremely personal, is worthwhile and valuable to the world, even if it’s not aligned with the things that we may be told, either explicitly or implicitly, to value by the world around us…and you know this whole conversation around self-worth and how we value ourselves and our creativity is a really juicy topic so I thin we’ll get into more at a later date but for now I just want to say having people point out the things that are positive about your work again just reminds us of our innate gifts gifts as artists and our worth as artists and people. 

The second reason I think positive feedback is important is that it actually points out to us the specific things that people like about our work. There are certain things about my poetry, for example, that I didn’t really realize were unique or interesting or meaningful, until I was a part of this writing group where people were regularly giving me only positive feedback. We weren’t allowed to give negative feedback, that was the point of not trampling our seeds in the garden. And I think positive feedback is so underrated. I think especially in this arts world, because we often think that the only way or the best way or the way that is what people do in school in school when they’re learning how to be artists, the only way to improve our work is to receive criticism, where people pointing out the flaws in what we’re doing so that we can improve upon and change those things - and while that, yes, can be helpful at times, it’s certainly not the only way to receive criticism that’s helpful and useful. 

Receiving positive feedback has really shown me what I naturally do well, and it’s encouraged me to lean into that and embrace that, rather than trying to make myself into maybe a style of creativity writing art whatever that I think is more acceptable or more what’s the word I’m looking for, like high, going to be valued by other people. This positive feedback has given me so much confidence as an artist because it’s allowed the creative seeds that I already have to really flourish. Instead of feeling like I need to go out and get new seeds - feeling like the zinnia seeds that I already have are not good enough, or people aren’t going to like them, and feeling like I have to go out and get sunflower seeds instead - instead of doing that, it’s shown me what is inherently beautiful and valuable in the zinnias that I do have. And it’s allowed those zinnias, or those unique artistic gifts, to grow bigger and thrive and become bolder and even more beautiful. 

And so this is exactly why I include positive feedback as part of my work as a creativity guide - I believe it’s SO helpful and so important, especially when you’re feeling a little wobbly about your abilities or your talent, to be encouraged and supported as you’re creating. And if you are one of those people who feels like you could use a little creative nourishment and encouragement, I would love to hear from you! You can head to my website at thephilosophersstem.com or click the link in the show notes or you can find me on Instagram @thephilosophersstem and send me a DM. I would love to be one of those voices who waters your beautiful unique zinnia seeds or whatever kind of zeeds you have - I think I just said zeeds. Zinnia zeeds. *ahem* Zinnia seeds. And helps them grow big and strong…even if they’ve been a little trampled in the past. 

So I hope this garden metaphor is still making sense…I obviously love plants so I’m always into a good plant metaphor. And as we wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with a few reflection questions that you can ponder or take some time to journal on: 

• Does the idea of procrastinating on your creative projects resonate with you? Are you waiting for a time when you have more time, more energy, more space, more something that you don’t think you have right now? 

• Have you been told by anyone in your life that your art, your writing, your music, your creative projects of some kind, are not good or not worth pursuing? Have you assumed, without being told that explicitly, that people will think you’re not good at your art? Are you being your own trampler of creativity? And has that stopped you from making the art that you want to make? Follow up question to that: do you want that to continue stopping you from making the art that you want to make? 

• Do you have anyone in your life who encourages your art? Do you have anyone who tells you what you’re doing well? If not, how could you get this support? Who could you invite into this role? 

So that’s all I have for you today, my friends. I hope that you have a beautiful day and a beautiful week, and I hope that you make some time and space to nurture your creative seeds and allow them to blossom into beautiful wonderful luscious plants. And until next time, remember to never wear boring socks.