For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with style. Categorising everything from books on the shelf to art on the page by colour, subject matter, and thematic genre. In some ways I think this is a healthy response to a chaotic world - organising things is the realm of design, one that we all engage in from when we first use our hands, building structures with lego, or cars, or doll houses.
There's nothing wrong with developing style, but I just realised something important. I've become so obsessed with honing my craft, iterating my style and finding my voice, that I've lost the very thing that kept me creating from beginning. The creative spark. Call it passion, energy, meaningful life. Call it thought, or feeling. The thing itself is as elusive as trying to grab fire and almost as mercurial (at least for me). And in the early days, keeping the internal fire stoked meant setting daily habits, and schedules, drawing X for Z amount of time whilst slowly building a body of work. It worked, and became habit, finishing page after page, day after day.
But recently it felt like something inside was snapping. My hand stopped feeling drawn to the page, my mind became restless, I realised the things I was making, although beautiful to me, were formulaic. Its like the repetition instilled itself in me as something meaningless, and the fire began to fade.
All of this to say, beware betraying your inner creativity for the external metrics of this world. Don't let your style be defined by the thing you know can sell well, or is easy to make, or people validate you for. Take the time to stoke your fire by trying something different, without thought or judgement. Honour your process.
I chose the image on this post because it was something surprising. Normally I hate anatomy, or anything bodily related, because it feels too literal and gives me the Ick. But I loved the blend of pattern and form that emerged through engaging with this idea, and the feeling of beauty in in the human form.
