The Creative

“Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem.
Here’s to the hearts that ache, here’s to the mess we make.”
// La La Land

 

     Creatives. They live in the world of possibilities. Seeing past the stark white canvas, blank page, bolt of fabric, the lump of clay. Or the undecorated sidewalk.
It takes a lot of “scope for the imagination” to be a creative, an eagerness to look past what you see in front of you and see instead what it could be. A work of art.
It’s a crazy thought to think that each creative eye is different, every move of the hand and idea spark in the eye, quirky in it’s own way. It makes us live in a world of curiosity, wondering just what unfinished and unthought of masterpieces lie behind that random person’s brain.

She’s a dreamer, go-getter, genuine firecracker. A creative if I ever saw one.

Today she’s a sidewalk chalk enthusiast, but what about a series of tomorrows?
Will she exchange her chalk for pastels or watercolors? Her canvas for something more permanent, not washed away with a later rain? Will being the next Beatrix Potter be an ambition?

 

 

Just observing this little creative was such a treat on this sunny and even more windy day. Watching her think and concentrate, putting so much brain power into her chalky creations. It reminded me so much of all the creatives whose path’s I’ve crossed over the years. The creatives who started small and were nobodies and are now well known, with thousands of followers on Etsy and social media. But also the creatives who go unnoticed, who are still starting out small with the dream to go bigger and share their work with the world. All alike is their desire to bring a little more beauty to the world with a creative gift they’re recipients of.

 

 

 

Sometimes, the creative gets slack. From a world that says the creative gift they’re pursuing isn’t grand enough or noticeable enough to bring to the table. Or that there are more important and worthwhile things to be devoting that time to, to put that gift back on the shelf so that we can be busy about a more important work. Because it probably won’t bring in the X amount of dough like the corporate world can, and you’ll probably fall on your face over and over again trying, and be asked the question, “Is it even worth it?”

 

      Yes, it’s worth it. Being a creative isn’t just choosing it as a title and donning it as a personality pin. Deep down, it’s in all of us. Whether we decide to draw it out or leave it hidden, it’s there.
Because we are made in the image of the greatest Creator. It’s worth discovering and rolling up our sleeves for, because by using that dose of creativity He’s given us, we glorify His creativity in the process.

 

     I witnessed so much creativity on this day back in the fall; the warmth of the last sunbeams of the evening, the whipping of the Indiana wind, the pigments of the green grass and the coloring trees. The small brunette with big brown eyes, orange smudges of goldfish cracker crumbs mixed with sidewalk chalk colors littering her princess shirt, the sketches “for mommy and daddy” scattered all over the driveway.
It all meshed so wonderfully together. I cannot help but think the Lord smiles when we embrace creativity, as a testament to His image in which He created us.

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.”
Genesis 1:27

//& special thanks to my candid subject, little Elise E.