Creative, Just Not Artistic

I am not a creative person. At least not in the tradition sense. I teach yoga to an eight year old, and when we do our opening shared drawing time, he always reminds me how bad I am at it. Do you know what it’s like to be bested by an eight year old artist? That’s me.

I envy all of you artistic people — the ones that can do cool lettering on signs, or whip up a costume for your kid on a moment’s notice, or who have a rotating stock of handmade seasonal décor. That’s not me. Many years ago, after inspecting one of my costume attempts, my friend’s mom put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Sweetie, there’s a difference between handmade and homemade. That is definitely homemade.”

I may not be artistic, but I’m creative in a lot of ways that don’t involve paint and thread and clay. I have found over 250 new things to do. That requires some creativity, my friend. But still, as I look over those 250 things, there’s some glaring holes. I don’t do artistic stuff. Not very often anyway. I pondered that for a while. What would happen if I started doing more artistic things, even if I wasn’t particularly good at them? I’ll be honest. I started pondering that several months ago. I found more interesting things to do.

There was not enough Riesling to get me through this class.

A few years ago, I did a learn to paint/drink wine class with some friends. That was a bust. In addition to being severely creatively…