What Does It Really Mean to Be a Creative Person?

A little while ago, I wrote a post which I called 10 Myths About Being a Creative Person. One person said that most of them were nonsense, and I entirely agree!

A problem with the myths that I wrote about is that they were very prescriptive. They implied that there were particular things you had to do if you were to consider yourself a creative person. They suggested that if you didn’t do those things, then you had failed. They are also linked being creative to unhealthy and unhelpful ideas about hustle culture, productivity, and things only having value if they are a commodity.

Being a creative person is so much broader than the myths imply. It is about who we are at least as much as what we do.

So here are my thoughts on what it means to be a creative person.

Creative People are Resourceful

When faced with a problem, we can usually come up with a solution. It might be wacky and weird, but it’s usually worth a try.

One of my favourite examples of creative resourcefulness is in the Apollo 13 space missio,n, when one of the oxygen tanks exploded. The engineers and other people on the ground came up with a plan to bring the astronauts back to earth safely. This included improvising a carbon dioxide filter made from items on board the spacecraft.

Accidents in space are not things most of us have to deal with in our everyday lives. Our resourcefulness comes out in other ways instead. Costumes for World Book Day and school plays, fixing broken things, substituting ingredients in a recipe, adjusting plans to take into account traffic, road works, weather, places we want to visit having odd opening hours, and other people’s needs, are all examples of when we might need to draw on our resourcefulness.

We Make Things For Ourselves and Our Families

One of the myths I mentioned was the idea that creativity only counts if we’re making things to sell.

This gives me the rage a tiny bit. One of my current pet peeves is the idea that making money is the only thing that matters. Obviously it’s necessary for the world we live in, but other things are important too. There’s quite a lot I could say about that, but I’ll save it for another time!

Making things for ourselves and our families allows us to use our creativity to respond positively to what is around us. It’s a good reason to make something that isn’t about making money.

I have fond memories of wearing clothes made for me by my mum and my granny when I was a little girl.

I remember my mum making me a beautiful coat when I was 5. Somebody had given her a remnant of Harris tweed, and she made it into a coat for me, with a velvet collar and velvet trim on the pockets. I also remember a cardigan my granny knitted me that had buttons with bees on. I loved novelty buttons, but my mum always used plain ones! Looking back, I can see the love my granny had for me in those bee buttons.

When my children were small, I did the same for them. I made clothes, bags and toys for them. For my home I’ve made curtains, cushion covers and blankets. I’ve seen clothes I’ve liked and recreated something similar for myself. You can probably think of examples from your own life where you have done the same kind of thing.

We Carry our Heritage

Human beings have always made things. I would even go so far as to say that being creative is a fundamental part of being a human being. Unfortunately, not everybody seems to realise this, and we are in real danger of forgetting this part of ourselves.

For lots of people, being creative allows them to connect with their cultural heritage. This is especially important when globalisation has meant that traditional crafts as part of a traditional way of life have become at risk of being lost.

Whatever our race, we all have a cultural heritage, and although there been a revival of interest in crafts, there is still a risk that we will lose them in favour of mass produced junk.

Making things allows us to connect with our cultural heritage, whatever that might be. It also gives us a link with our personal heritage.

Those of us who value creativity often grew up with mothers, aunts and grandmothers who knitted, sewed, crocheted, or who were creative in other ways.

In my own family, the creativity strand goes back generations. One of my favourite family stories is that of my great grandmother, who was sent a basket of clothes for her children after her husband died. She took the clothes and made them into new things, because she didn’t want her children to wear things that other people’s children had finished with, but she wasn’t in a position to be fussy. When she and her children visited the family members who had given them the clothes, they said that she couldn’t expect them to help her out if she dressed the children like that, implying that she’d spent a fortune on nice clothes for them. They even didn’t recognise them as the clothes they had sent!

So every sock we knit, every quilt sewn, every World Book Day costume finally finished at 2 in the morning, every button lovingly attached to a little cardigan, joins us with a long line of women who through the ages have done the same.

We Value Slowing Down

Making things by hand requires us to slow down. It’s usually much quicker just to buy something than to make it yourself. But sometimes it is worth doing things more slowly.

Taking the time to make something enables us to appreciate the skill, time and care that go into making something well. In turn, when we’ve poured love and care into making something, we value it much more.

If you have spent hours deciding what to make, choosing fabric, then carefully cutting and sewing and making sure the thing fits, you’re not going to wear it once and then throw it away.

Even if the thing you’ve made doesn’t turn out like you’d hoped, you can always change it, or use the fabric for something else.

This offers an alternative to fast fashion, where things are not valued because they are cheap and are discarded after a couple of uses, leading to the environmental nightmare we’ve all seen pictures of.

Making a conscious choice to slow down also allows us to notice what is there in front of us. We are able to be truly present in the moment, even if we just take a few minutes. Creative ideas are able to flow, and we can find ways to respond to what is around us. Not to mention that it all makes us feel better.

Slowing down can be tricky because it runs contrary to modern ideas about busy culture and the virtue of being seen to be busy. For us, it means choosing not to rush, at least sometimes, to leave the car at home and walk instead, to walk with no aim of going anywhere in particular, to stop and notice what is there, to make something slowly, by hand, knowing that it’s going to take ages. But we do it anyway, because we know that it’s important.

We Keep Our Hands and Minds Busy

Lots of creative people find it very difficult just to sit, without their hands having something to.

Even if we have a bigger project on the go, like dressmaking or a big painting, quite often we will also have a little thing that we can pick up when we have a few minutes, then put it down and return to it later.

Not only does it keep our hands busy, and offer us a way to be creative, even if it’s just for a few minutes, it keeps our minds busy as well. It is very difficult to worry about things either in our lives or in the wider world if you’re counting stitches or concentrating on a piece of embroidery!

Being able to put our worries aside, even just for a little while, can make a difference to how we feel, and also how well we cope with what is going on around us.

We Often Have a Lot of Creative Outlets

Because being creative is at least as much about who we are as what we do, we are often creative in lots of ways. It’s almost as though we can’t help ourselves. It spills out in all areas of our lives.

Not only do we often knit or crochet, sew, or play a musical instrument, or draw or paint, often we will also make birthday cakes, garden, upcycle old furniture, arrange flowers or vignettes in our homes, and wear unusual outfits. We’re often also very good at problem solving.

So although it is usual to have a preferred outlet for our creativity, it is very common for it to come out in other ways as well.

We See the Potential in Materials and Ideas, Even if We Don’t See Them Through

Seeing potential in everything around us is one of the most difficult things about being a creative person!

It’s why we often have cupboards bursting with yarn, fabric and other bits and pieces, and is the reason why we are often very reluctant to throw anything away!

Often we feel inspired to make something, either by what we see around us, or as a way of expressing what we are feeling. Sometimes a particular yarn or fabric will spark an idea. Even old, tatty, and worn out things can fill us with ideas of what we could do to give those things a new lease of life.

Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day, and a significant number of those are taken up with paid jobs, looking after children or other family members, and tedious things like washing up and laundry.

So although some of the ideas bear fruit, an awful lot don’t. But perhaps what matters is that we recognise that a lot of things have the potential to become something useful, beautiful, or both.

As an aside, it can be handy to have somewhere to keep ideas when inspiration strikes. A sketchbook or a notebook is a nice option. You can jot things down, make sketches and stick things in.

If you tend to scribble things down on bits of paper, or collect things, then a folder is a good idea.

A third idea is a notes app on your phone. I quite like Google Keep, because it allows me to make notes, take photos and set reminders.

We Appreciate Other People’s Creativity

As creative people we often enjoy the results of other people’s creativity. We can appreciate their responses to a place or a situation or an idea. It doesn’t usually matter very much whether it is a beautiful Monet painting of his lovely garden, or the work of a local artist who likes painting rabbits.

Visiting big galleries is fun, especially if it involves lunch or tea and cake! But seeing what other people are doing is also enjoyable. Often small towns will have exhibitions of local artists’ work, and it can be just as interesting and enjoyable as going to a big art gallery.

We can appreciate other forms of creativity as well. A little child in a beautiful hand knitted jumper, somebody’s lovely garden that we walk past every day, a wreath on somebody’s door they’ve made, or somebody we see on the bus who is wearing a colourful outfit or interesting jewellery.

How does life look for you as a creative person? I’d to hear! If you have something you’d like to share, please leave a comment!