There's No One Right Way to Create
This morning, I had the most delightful meandering conversation with
We were supposed to talk about creative processes, and we did, but we also ended up wandering into gel plate disaster territory, creating and cleaning messes, the courage to make “shitty art” and my dreams of a cottage in the Southern Hemisphere.
What struck me most was that I went in with the notion: “We are so different!” And by the end of the conversation, I had an addendum: “But, we are so similar!”
Kristin shows up every day at her work station, doing Zoom calls, recording her process, creating something, anything with her group—Monday through Friday, a strict regimen (with some allowances, of course, for sick days and such). But there’s a discipline to her regimen, a rigor, like going to the gym.
“You show up and you just do it,” she said.
Me? I steal art time while pasta water boils. I close my eyes and grab whatever supply is closest. I create in the margins, in the spaces between everything else.
And we’re both doing it right.
What I Keep Thinking About
One thing we absolutely agreed on: you have to be willing to create terrible art.
Kristin puts it perfectly—her best trait as an artist isn’t technical skill, it’s that she’s smart enough to learn, adapt, pivot and feel her way through it.
I shared about my gel printing breakthrough—how I used to stop at the third or fourth ugly layer, but when I pushed through to the 11th or 15th print, magic happened. Sometimes you have to trust that the mess is part of the process.
Like her, I don’t have professional art training. And like her, I have the courage to mess up. And, honestly, I think this is the most important creative skill any of us can develop.
Different Roads, Same Destination
Kristin’s daily practice gives her muscle memory—she doesn’t have to think about how much paint to load on the brush because her hands already know. She doesn’t like decision fatigue and for good reason.
My sporadic approach lets me stay curious and spontaneous, grabbing watercolor spray to put over oil pastels just to see what happens.
We talked about privilege—how neither of our creative practices currently pays the bills, and how that freedom shapes what we’re able to explore.
We both talked about breaking from the mold and trying to model something different than the perfectionist, achievement-driven childhoods we experienced.
But the core thing? We’re both showing up to create.
There is no blueprint
There’s no flowchart for making art. There’s no single path to a consistent creative practice. You don’t need art school or daily rituals or the perfect supplies or a clean studio (I literally cut things on the floor because my three tables are always covered in ongoing projects, six concurrent ones at last count).
You just need the willingness to begin, to mess up, to try again.
Whether you’re like Kristin with her structured daily practice or like me stealing moments between dinner prep, whether you’re someone who plans everything or someone who closes their eyes and picks up whatever’s closest, whether you journal every day and keep your art to flip through memory lane or give it all away—you’re doing creativity right.
It’s not so much about following a template as it is about listening to your heart and letting your hands follow.
What does your creative practice look like? I’d love to hear about the ways you make space for creativity, however messy or structured or in-between they might be.
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