The Creative Person

I have not been painting. Not because I do not want to, but because there are other things that I also want to do that are coming first. I think many artists think they must paint everyday. I do not find that to be true for me. I really love to paint and do so whenever I can but I also love to garden and take long walks. I have friends with cancer who I love to spend time with. I live by a lake and love to go out paddling on the water and enjoying the beauty that surrounds me. I feel each of these is a creative venture as well and should not be overlooked, for we are not just one but many faceted people. It would be a shame to only nuture one part of ourselves and leave the rest unattended, thinking it is unimportant, when it, in fact, can make us whole. To be complete as a person, we need to pay attention to all our interests that make us who we are.
I painted the kitchen last week. I hope to do more of it and think that we need to make our enviornment as pleasing as possible, which I think makes other creativity possible. It is hard to be creative in dreary surroundings. Make your world a happy place and it will make you happy as well. I think this is critical for artists who face long winters such as I do. We do have a tendency to get depressed and it is important to make the world we live in as bright and cheerful as possible so the winters are not so gray! Yes, there are many beautiful shades of gray but they do not belong on my walls!
Spend some time thinking about those areas of interest that you have, that you shove to the back of your mind. Are they something you think might be worth investigating? Will doing one of them increase the quality of your life or give you greater happiness? Then get off your butt and do them, for we only go around once. I am more than an artist who paints in watercolor. I would be selling myself short to leave it at that. So would you. Nourish those forgotten creative areas that you have hidden and see how happy and full your life can be!