By All Means

Recently a local art store has been producing a series of videos to inspire creativity entitled “By all means create.” It is based upon Vincent Van Gogh’s famous quote: “If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter’, then by all means paint…and that voice will be silenced….”
But that voice of the inner critic is a strong one. Even with some aptitude, experience, and expertise it is there.  Even when the courage to create is found, it twists itself into a new questions: “Why?”
Why paint? Why create? Why make things? Why fill the world with more things when the world is overloaded with things? Why make things that possibly no one else will value?
A deep breathe and the exhalation: “Because it is our nature to create.” It is fundamental to our state of being to make things. Creating takes us to that initial creative spark. It is joyful, uplifting, and deep down inside, we yearn to do it.
Often the voice of the inner critic threatens to silence me, to stop me from creating. But then another voice wonders: “Why not?”
The voices debate. Each “you are not” argument is countered, and in the end there is no good reason not too. So I’ll continue to paint, to create, for now.
​
This entry was first posted on November 8, 2014.