I've heard it said that the longest road is the one between the head and heart. This can be the situation for all of us. When I reflect on that in relation to art, and being an artist, I immediately think art is all about the heart. For many artists it can be difficult to have a balance between the head and heart. Often being creative, means you feel your way around through intuition and emotion, and the so called irrational part of our brain.
There are a lot of destructive myths and misconceptions about art and artists, surrounding the personality, and the character of the artist, which more often than not, only impedes understanding and perception.
Julia Cameron in her book The Artist Way made a list of these myths that I found spot on. She talks about some of these myths being ideas such as, “artists are broke,” “artists are crazy,” “artists are drug-addicted” and “artists are drunk.”
I don't concern myself too much with these myths these days, because I think the more I continue to be myself as a creative person these myths drop away. We learn more from others by watching how they live their lives, as opposed to what they say. Creativity for me is a way of living, regardless if I am an artist or not.
I strive to live my life as a creative person, and as an artist I live by the basic principles listed below, that I knew existed deep within my psyche, before I read Julia Cameron's book 20 years ago. Her book affirmed and clarified these principles, and this made all the difference for me, and changed my life.
BASIC PRINCIPLES - from the book, The Artist's Way a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity - Julia Cameron
1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy:pure creative energy.
2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life-including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator's creativity
within us and our lives.
4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being
creative ourselves.
5. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good
orderly direction.
8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be
expected.
9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our
dreams, we move toward our divinity.
