About following the Creative Zest

Here is an interesting article I came across....

Creative Butterfly

Sticking to one art form . . . or not.

By Deborah Atherton

Although some of us wake up one morning at age six with full knowledge of who we are going to be and what we are going to do, many of us have creative interests that vary widely from year to year. This is a tendency that many, artists and non-artists alike, look at with some suspicion — “last year you did pottery, the year before you were into film, and now you want to start print making? Can’t you pick one thing?”
Well, no, maybe you can’t. In theory, picking one thing would set us up to become tremendously expert at that one thing — which is certainly what our well-intentioned inquisitors would like to see from us. Isn’t it better to be the best print maker in the world than a kind of print maker/potter/documentary film maker with no clear direction? Maybe — or maybe doing the pottery piqued your interest in looking at things a certain way, which brought you to film making, and later to print making. I know skills are hard to acquire, and it can take a lifetime to become a great painter or poet — but many of us just aren’t designed to only paint, or only write poetry. (In fact, I’ve noticed, for instance, that there seem to be many, many writers of various kinds who are also into painting or graphic design — and most of them garner a lot of criticism for not sticking to one thing.)
But how do we know when to stick to one art form and when to move on to the next? How do we know we aren’t just being dilettantes who can’t settle?
The key is whether or not we are able to finish the work before we move on to the next thing. If we have a basement full of pots that never made it to the kiln, or a desk piled high with unfinished screenplays, we may not be answering the inner call of a new means of expression — we might be just dodging our frustration with the work we are doing now. We owe it to ourselves to make our best effort to finish the work in front of us before we abandon it for the ever-so-alluring new form.
Of course, you can’t always finish. Sometimes you genuinely realize half-way through that this thing you thought would be so beautiful is really not good, or not good enough. Or maybe you just aren’t ready for it, whatever it is — maybe your craft hasn’t caught up to your ideas yet. And in that case you do have to put it aside, at least for the time being, until you catch up with yourself. That may not be the worst moment in the world to try something else for a while.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a creative butterfly if you can stay honest with yourself about the process, and know that how ever many different forms you try, it’s still yourself you have to come back to in the end. •
© 2010 Deborah Atherton. All rights reserved.