The Prison of Your Voice

I know, I know. I have told you how important it is to develop your own, distinctive voice. It is your trademark, and your brand. But,.....I can't help but wonder if all this emphasis on voice can be a prison or a poison to our creative muse.

Let's say you do what everyone says. You come up with something that is "yours"! No one else has anything quite like it out there. And, joy oh joy!!....people like it! They are buying it! Talk about gratification. There is truly joy in the creative process itself. It can be the best drug on earth for anything that ails you. But, when others see your work and "oooh" and "ahhhh!" over it, that is a very heady moment.

And, even artists are human. What happens when we get this wonderful rush of excitement over how much people liked what we did? We want to hold onto it, to preserve it, nurture it, baby it.....do absolutely anything to keep it going. Am I right?

The problem is, this very act is what might kill us as artists. As soon as we try to stay right in that moment of being surrounded by "oohhh's" and "aaahhh's"....better yet, accompanied by hands outstretched with credit cards or cash....as soon as we try to capture that moment, we may have hammered a nail in the coffin for our creativity.

As soon as we say to ourselves, "this is what is working, so I will do more of this," we have begun to build the prison walls. It will not be immediately apparent. Because it will take time for the light to dim, and the crowds to disappear. But, they will. Human nature, it seems, craves a certain degree of novelty. And if we do not continue to create, we risk losing our audience, and that excitement about our work.

Yes, we want, and need, to develop a line, and explore it fully. But, we don't want to kill the creative urge in the process. We must trust that if we had one good idea, there are more where that came from. Doing work to satisfy the market is not what this is about. It is more about letting the reaction of the market guide,....or misguide,...your muse.

What is the creative urge? For me it is the voice that says, "I wonder", or "Hunhh." It is that place where a question pops into my mind. Or a shape or form, or a new surface. This is the place we must nurture and protect. This is the place that needs care and feeding. If instead, we say, "Oh no, I can't do that. This is what my work looks like, what people expect from me....not that." We firmly turn our back, close that door, and put that nose on that grindstone, and grind away. And pretty soon, we will find that the ideas to explore have disappeared.

Another risk of closing off to new ideas that might pop up, is that we might become very, very protective of "our" work. When we get to that place of intense ownership, and protection of our work or our expression, we can start to see threats where there are none. People who are copying us. People who are stealing from us. Fear and paranoia are not conducive to creativity. They send us looking over our shoulder and around the corner, when where we really need to be looking is inside. Inside our heads and our hearts. Letting the voice that can't be too still for too long have it's say.

Fear of being copied can be a huge distraction. It drains our energy, and distracts our attention. It keeps us from moving forward. We always have one eye open for that dirty, rotten scoundrel who is ready to rip us off.

What if instead, we say, "Copying happens." Because it does. It is the place where many people begin. It is borne from admiration and enthusiasm, as much as any other place. When an individual copies you, it is unlikely to do much harm. They cannot copy your name, or your maker's mark....the very energy you infuse into each piece in the process of creation. They will most likely get bored and move along, or find their own muse and move along. And that is the essential ingredient for all of us, movement.

Movement is rushing, bubbling, flowing. It may have fits and starts at times, but the general idea is motion. Momentum. Seldom in a straight line. Our creative voice must move. It must stretch it's legs. Peek around the corner, veer off down that path. It is endlessly curious. Sitting still is not what this is about. Building an artistic legacy on one thought, one idea, one expression will not happen. Letting yourself grow as an artist means going with the flow more than discipline. I will explore that in a bit more depth in my next post. But for now, let me know what you think. How does your creativity bubble up? Does it move in fits and starts? Or does all this seem like a foreign language. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving to all my American readers. And, any and all, please feel free to share a thought of thanks for the day, the week, or the year.

I personally, am thankful for the gift of watching my daughters grow up and begin to emerge as two incredibly unique and wonderful people.