Don't Justify Your Creativity

When I first started painting regularly about 3 years ago, I was incredibly nervous about it. Painting hadn’t been my “thing” or at least my out in the open thing. I’d always loved art and dabbled in painting quietly, but my well known thing was photography. I loved photography, and found I was good at it. Yet even in photography I always felt like I wasn’t that good. Never good enough.

Along comes painting, and that feeling intensifies. I recall sharing with a college friend that I’d once been close with that painting had become something I was doing, and she commented she was surprised to hear it. “I never knew painting was a thing you did.” It felt like I was having to justify this creative avenue, and I kept feeling that need to justify. Many times it was outright crippling.

Jenna Fischer talks about this feeling of needing to justify your art and space in the world. In a conversation with Sam Jones on The Off Camera Show, she explains how to respond to that feeling. In her statements she offers the thought that bringing our art to the table isn’t just ok, but something the world needs. The world always needs more art and more creativity.

In that spirit, I’ll be over here making things. Even if what I make isn’t something people knew about or expected from me.