I’ve talked previously about rediscovering creative passions as an adult and reconnecting with a sense of childhood wonder, and explored in some ways how fulfilling my inner child has been a route to increased happiness for me. Today, I want to explore this a little further through the lens of creativity.

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For whatever reason, I’ve found that we become increasingly self-conscious as we age. Whilst we may feel self-conscious when we’re younger, we still seem to engage in more risk-taking behaviours. Obviously, this can lead to some difficult situations, but it does allow us to experiment freely with expression.

In the past, I’ve been controlled by others’ perception of me. I’ve wanted to be liked, to look good, to appear successful. I’ve kept myself in horrible situations purely because I was worried about how leaving would make me look to other people; I’ve stayed in jobs that made me miserable because they had some level of status; I’ve curated my social media feeds to appear happier and more interesting than I really am. I know I’m not alone in any of these.

At some point, I realised that what other people thought didn’t really matter. Of course, I still want to be perceived in a certain way. I’d like people to think I’m kind, to think I’m funny, to think I’m intelligent. I’d like people to enjoy my art. I’d like people to find my company comforting and warm. However, what has been truly freeing for me has been to realise that I believe all these things are true and that’s all that really matters. I can validate my own existence without the need for others to confirm that all these things are true.

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How, then, does this relate to creativity?

I’ve become quite adept at understanding that the point of art is not always to be good. I could practice and put in my 10,000 hours to become an expert at fine art, I could master form and learn the rules and create photorealistic images. That isn’t what I want to do, though. I want to experience the joy of getting messy and just making something.

I used to be embarrassed of showing my “art” to other people. I was worried that people would realise I didn’t have any inherent talent, that I couldn’t draw to save my life, that I was proud of creating something a child could.

However, at some point I was fingerpainting in my kitchen and came to a few realisations, which were promptly scrawled into my messy journal.

“Anyone could do it”

Actually, these are my fingerprints you can see in the painting. Nobody else has my fingerprints. Nobody else can create these exact prints. This work is mine and mine alone.

Furthermore, the beauty is that anyone could do it, but not everyone does do it. I am far from the only person to be able to create a mess on a canvas and call it art, but I have given myself the permission to be unashamedly bad at something and do it for the sheer joy of creation. Not many people are able to do that for fear of looking silly.

“A child could do that”

Similar to the previous realisation and retort: yes, they could. However, again, the beauty of this work is that a child didn’t do it. The true beauty of it is that I, an adult woman, allowed myself to see the world through the lens of my inner child. I allowed myself to be happy in the moment, to hell with what anyone else might think about how ‘terrible’ my art is.

There’s something so freeing about giving myself permission to just express myself, to use materials I’ve always been scared of wasting and unapologetically making something I’m proud of. I can make abstract landscapes and creatures and it doesn’t really matter that I’ll never be as ‘good’ as the masters. What is good, anyway?

I’ve done something that so many people spend time being scared of doing: I’ve let myself embrace not being good and doing something just for the sheer joy of it.

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I spent a lot of time this summer exploring galleries and some of my favourite paintings were ones that we’re necessarily technically masterful. They were ones where I could tell the artist was enjoying the process of creation.

I used to look at contemporary and modern art through the lens of “I could do that, so it’s not art”. Now I look at pieces and think “I could do that, let’s have a go”. It’s been a really freeing perspective shift. I don’t have to be good at everything! I can simply enjoy the process! And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to display my shoddy finished pieces around my home.

How are you going to let go and embrace joy this week?