Post #400…Finding My Voice as an Artist, a Blogger, a Creative Soul

Today marks a milestone for me…my 400th article/blog post here at Creative Compass Magazine.

A little over 532 days ago on January 1, 2010 I launched Creative Compass Magazine
{ exploring the creative life } ~a long-time dream…a passion and a giant leap of faith into my destiny…

It has been a journey, indeed an exploration to Find My Voice as an Artist, a Blogger and a Creative Soul. It has been a lesson in opening up and visiting all those places inside me I love and don’t love so very much…

Opening yourself up is a pathway not a destination. It is truthfully the ability to allow myself to be revealed in my words, my thoughts and my creations as I really am…with all my strengths and weaknesses. Being able to share deeply means being vulnerable. I have learned that there is nobody to guide you along this new path and, most importantly, there are no mistakes when you are learning to open yourself up…you just must go forth…

Creativity isn’t the purview of a lucky few with large studio budgets and mass media connections. With social media and good old-fashioned working the nets (networking), anyone can have impact on the world.

When the Internet started gaining attention in the late 1990s, I was enthused and jumped right in. When I started my first blog on Live Journal, I was overjoyed at the freedom of expression I found.

Fast forward to 2011 and 8 blogs later: The expectations for polished content escalates as billions of people are connected through blogs, social media, forums, Google and much more.

I was so like many (probably millions) of you who had that inner voice that said, “We can’t possibly do this until…pick one:

1. I get better.
2. I  get the studio up and running.
3. I  get a gallery rep.
4. I have a body of work.
5. I sell a lot of my art.
6. _______________ your excuse…

I found myself deftly sidestepping and deferring the creativity that was aching to burst forth…until _______.

I was fighting with the Perfectionist who tells me I ought to wait until we have all the resources to tell this story “properly…” or the Critic who tells me I am just not good “enough…” or the Grim Reaper who tells me nobody will buy/like/want your work!!! YIKES!!!

As I head through the doorway this milestone, I find myself invited/guided/led/called to take a new path…one called

Manifesto

I will allow my divine intuition create without editing…I will let go of preconceived notions…I will play…I will find my unique, individual visual voice…and I will begin to use it powerfully….

I believe that we are born into this world with our own special message…if we never find a way to voice it, the world stays incomplete…as we stay incomplete…so we must ask ourselves today…what is it that only I have to say…and do I have the courage to speak it?

What I know for sure is that I do not want to die with my artwork still inside me…be it my song, my dance, my book or my painting…I am compelled to bring it forth into the world…give birth to that voice only I can speak with, and make the art only I can create.

I stop being totally invested in the outcome…what I want or hope the result to be…and instead become invested in the journey itself…that gift of time when all external things dissolve away…when time seems to stand still or fly by…that spiritual experience known as creative flow…

We come into this world with a special piece of the universal puzzle…and if you don’t find that piece of you that belongs outside yourself…that belongs to the whole of the universe…and if you never bring it forth, the universe is missing a piece…and you are missing that piece also…the whole will never be finished or complete without that special piece that is you…

As I walk through this doorway and continue on this new path…one that promises many discoveries as we explore our intuitivity (intuition and creativity)…I invite you to come with me…