Creativity

The Olympic buzz is wrapping up and all of the athletes are participating in interviews about Rio and in their individual events.  I heard a lot of the athletes refer to their sport as a mode of self –expression or an art form.  Who thought a muscle bound judo fighter would compare her roundhouse kicks and uppercuts to the soft strokes of a brush on a canvas?  I’ve never sought out creativity and artistic skill in practices other than painting and drawing.  This got me to thinking… in middle school, I discovered I sucked at art class.  I would follow all of the directions and try really hard but my projects would never turn out properly.  I could see the vision in my head, but my brain refused to collaborate with my colored pencil.  The fact that my painting did not compare to the model piece translated to “you suck at art” in my head.  I decided in that moment to avoid creative art projects if I could so I didn’t have to embarrass myself.  Over the years, that idea was converted to “I’m not creative”. 

That all changed when I went to college.  I found a group of people who turned into my creative space.  I learned how to express myself in ways that didn’t include smocks and watercolors.  My sorority nominated me for the position of website coordinator my sophomore year of college.  My duties included maintaining all social media outlets and our official website.  I slowly began to take photos of sisters at events and held photo shoots to collect content for the website.  By doing this, I found my creative artsy side!  I really enjoy photographing people and catching the feeling of our sisterhood in a picture. 

The other creative outlet I did not realize I had is blogging.  My senior year of high school I realized I loved to write and wasn’t too shabby at it!  It took me a few years to embrace this passion and explore what I can do with it which led me to creating my blog a little over a year ago.  At first I was afraid to share it with anyone, I wrote but didn’t tell anyone what I had done.  I finally got the confidence to share my blog through facebook.  I was overwhelmed by the praise and positive feedback!  This helped me recognize my creativity using words instead of colors.

Moral of the story is everyone is creative.  Just because your painting is hanging on your mom’s refrigerator instead of the walls of the Smithsonian, doesn’t mean you aren’t creative.  Explore your passions and talents to find creativity in sports, art, writing, exercise, or fashion!  Allow yourself to express your thoughts and emotions in a way others can’t.  I promise, it will be worth all of the failed attempts to paint a self portrait in elementary school.