Creative Spirit Blog July 3, 2021
" Silence of Morn " Pastel over Watercolor
"We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are”. Fred Rogers
I was approached this past week and asked about art trends and how I felt about them. I thought it might be a good topic to approach in a different way than I have in the past.
No two people are alike, yet we are all part of “One Human Family”. Humanity connects us. There is a “sameness” between humans. We are all trying to survive, we all feel joy, sadness, fear, and anger. We are each just trying to figure out this thing called life. Yet each of us is uniquely different in how we deal with the business of living. For many, these differences make life interesting, yet for others they make life frustrating!
We are born into a society or community and learn a set of norms acceptable to that group or community. These norms guide and direct our behavior to provide order and predictability in social relationships, and to make sense of, and understand each other's actions.
Unfortunately, with this come “conformity”; the tendency to behave in certain ways to be accepted by a group or “the group”! If we try to conform too much it causes us to lose our identity and it stifles our ability to let our creativity blossom and grow.
In our oneness as a human family, we each bring a unique and special voice to mankind. We each have a unique personality, perspective about things, and different strong points. We develop different likes and dislikes, so we have different ways of telling the world who we are.
The arts are something that span history from the beginning of human existence to the present time. They are a record of our history. They have meaning and appeal in each culture: A visual and audio appeal that arrests our vision and hearing with beauty, and an intellectual appeal that holds our thoughts and captivates our minds with their mystique. “The Arts” as a whole are part of the “Human Family”. They are an umbrella, a “oneness”. However, the genre chosen by each person is different. It is our individual taste. It is wonderful that as viewers, we have so many different ones to choose from, and as artists, so many different vehicles to use to express who we are and to leave our mark.
Finding our voice and making it unique is important. The sameness of social norms and rules are important for keeping order and safety within a community, but when it comes to living our lives within the acceptable morality of not harming another’s life, our lives should be lived on our terms. We must take pride in who we are as individuals, and what we do. Our unique individuality should take precedence over being one of the “crowd.”
As we go about finding our individual voice, we need to respect the differences of others. It involves recognizing their work, dress, actions, or lack of action, and their creativity as their personal statements.
“Originality is neither a matter of inventiveness nor method, it is the essence of personality.” Edward Hopper
Create with your own voice, and appreciate the abilities and various of approaches by others. Stay Safe. Carolyn