Real creativity

I was sitting down with a good friend and artist for coffee last week and we got to talking about what happens in this town, art wise, and the myriad people who make it. I suddenly felt very lucky to live in a world where there is so much creativity. We sat and named all of the people who make art who we know locally and came up with an astonishing list.

These names were only visual artists, and there are many others who could be included if we extended it to creatives as vocalists, instrumentalists, writers, actors and dancers. In categorising those artists, we could name artists who produce landscapes, portraits, wildlife, objective, whimsical, graphic and abstract art in oil, acrylic, watercolour, ink, pastel, pencil and photography. In addition, there were fabric creatives, sculptors and potters in the three-dimensional world. There will be things which I have missed off the list, so I profusely apologise for missed genres and mediums, but that also speaks of the diversity of the work sometimes hidden away where we don’t see it.

We are fortunate to be able to discover more through the world of social media and, having become more savvy in that arena over the past year, I find that I have become more aware of who is around and what they are up to. What I feel that I should be doing is making the effort to go back out, as I used to, and looking in galleries and exhibitions and around the town at murals and sculptures, because seeing things in the physical world always has more of an impact.

So, my mission for the next month is to go and visit art being displayed around town and really look at it. I have scheduled a couple of gaps in the next week and have planned what I will do. I challenge you to do the same and think about whether it has made a difference to your day. The only rule is to enjoy the experience!