Get Lost In Creativity

I know I’ve posted about this kind of thing many, many, times over the past couple years, so bear with me. I think it’s an important part of living a life that feels fulfilled, which in turn makes us better, grounded people. Losing yourself in the process of making things is, in my opinion, what truly connects us to something other than the mundanity of the daily grind. Strumming a guitar, writing, woodworking, tinkering under the hood of a car, drawing, painting, etc…these processes are meditation without the mantra and new age music. There’s no level of expertise required, it’s just the act of getting out of your own head and losing yourself in a creative process.

For years my creative outlet has been making music. Starting guitar lessons at 12 and then moving on through tablature, theory, scales, etc…till I turned 17 and decided I was done learning other peoples songs and wanted to write my own. Which I did. It was quite a few years before I felt comfortable enough to let anyone hear the songs. Buying my first 4-track cassette recorder at 20 and figuring out how to make the songs sound listenable(mic placement, EQ-ing, then compression, limiting, mixing) was all part of the process. What’s funny is that I have two or three mini-discs full of those first batches of songs and listening to them a couple years ago for the first time in three decades it was strange, but in a good way. I wasn’t hearing them as myself, but more so someone much older hearing a barely adult trying to find his voice. Sure, the songs were rough but I heard potential in that barely an adult.

If you’re a semi-regular patron of these pages then you know I started drawing and painting a couple years ago. No lessons or no attempt at realism, I just needed an outlet of creativity that didn’t require disappearing into the basement and playing guitar. So my wife and I would sit down at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon and we’d use watercolors and do the painting version of “doodling”. Turns out I found a lot of peace and solace in the process. I don’t consider myself talented in any sort of way, but I’m not making things to hang at a gallery or sell on an Etsy page. Much like writing nearly daily here, making art is a stress reliever. It’s a means to get the stress in my head and heart out onto a page via paints, brushes, and canvas. Or a sketch pad. I used to do that with writing and recording songs, but now I do it via my imagination and colored pencils. Or acrylics and canvas.

I kind of got lazy this summer with the drawing, so I’m making some changes in my life regarding priorities(my personal mental and physical well being being those priorities) and plan on making it a regular thing. Below you can see some recent works. Like I said, I don’t think I’m all that good but I don’t care. I like doing it and sometimes what I draw makes me laugh. That’s good enough for me. Plus, people seem to really enjoy these homemade birthday cards. So there’s that.