You Are an Artist

What if you and I were having coffee, and out of the blue, I said to you:

“You are an Artist.”

Unless you are like my husband who has an art degree, you paint regularly, or you play an instrument—chances are, you would laugh and shake your head, “No.” Then you might tilt your head to the side and look at me a little funny.

“Do you know who you are talking to?” you might ask.

You probably wouldn’t believe me. In fact if your experiences growing up were anything like mine, it would be very difficult for you to believe otherwise. Telling you that you are an artist might seem as crazy as telling you that you are a doctor (unless, of course, you are). But, no matter how you’d respond, I think deep down, you would want me to be right.

I think all of us want to be artists.

Each of us were born with a unique set of creative abilities and interests that are important pieces of our identity. Not only that, they are clues to help us figure out our purpose in this world, and how we are meant to make a difference. Yet sadly, many of us have been discouraged along the way. We’ve been made to believe that we aren’t good at certain art forms—or that we’re good at just one thing—so at some point, we stop reaching within. We stop seeking to discover the things that make us feel the most alive—

And all because things like this happen:

During my senior year of high school, my schedule finally allowed me to take an art class. One day, my teacher pulled me out into the hall. He looked at me and said something I will never forget. He said:

“Melissa, you just aren’t creative enough.”

Like affixing a sticky, hard to remove label to my soul, he named me that day. For years after, his words kept me from reaching within myself to create. Looking back, my art teacher could only measure my artistic ability by the projects he gave me. However, where he may have only been speaking about my ability to paint or sketch, I took his words to mean that I wasn’t creative, period. So for a long time, I gave up trying.

For most of my twenties, I taught junior high and high school students that they had been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Thankfully it was then that this label began to lose its power. Somewhere along the line I began to put it all together:

God created everything.

God creates. He is creative.

We have been created to be like Him.

So we have been created to be creative.

Then I read the work of researcher/storyteller, Brene Brown, who says:

“I’m not very creative” doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.”

Though I may not have been the Van Gogh of my art class, I was still created to create. Believing otherwise, kept me from fully being myself. But thankfully overtime, I have realized that there are many ways of being creative—of being an artist—and I am better at more of them than I would have thought.

You and I, we’re artists.

Our work may not look the way “art” was defined when we were in school, and our work may not be hung up in a museum. Our mediums might involve food instead of brushes, people instead of props, or even numbers instead of paint. But creativity is a part of who we are, and somewhere within our souls lie creative talents we have yet to discover. Believing otherwise only keeps us and the world from experiencing all we have to give.