REFLECTIONSFINDING YOUR ARTISTIC IDENTITY
Whether you’re an artist , a brand, or simply a human being trying to find their self-expression and individuality, what gives someone or something a unique flair and sense of identity is having a perspective.
It is SO easy to get lost in comparing ourselves to others as we’re finding our creative footing and self-expression. With all of the immediacy of inspiration that can be sourced online, keeping close to your artistic voice, let alone finding it, can prove difficult sometimes.
Amidst all that is available for us to be inspired by, there is a space in the creative process to look at others and to copy and replicate. There’s nothing wrong with that as a personal/private practice, it’s how we learn. However, there comes a point where replicating is making you lose your own personal voice and identity — losing the plot of what makes you unique.
So this week, I wanted to share a few ways I find my own perspective and point-of-view and hopefully this can help you too in finding a sense of creative identity and reclamation.
1. DEVELOP A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LANGUAGE OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS
As someone who is always having a conversation with the invisible world, this is probably my favorite way to work with my own creativity and perspective because so much of what inspires me exists within the sensations of the unseen that I desire to visualize or make tangible. It’s also a very playful way to engage with your creativity and identity— one that bypasses rational thought and creates an opening to work with the Mystery.
Our brain consists of two hemispheres: the left brain (conscious) - our rational thought process, logic, and analysis, and the right brain (unconscious) - our emotional processes, intuition, creativity and spatial awareness.
Our subconscious, or “unconscious” mind, speaks to us in the abstract. It’s framework for interpreting experiences and reality is through emotions and story. Because of this, it communicates through visual imagery and senses - this can be through colors, symbols, dreams and our intuition or knowing(s).
This is why fairy tales, songs, and archetypes can sometimes stay with us for so long. They leave an impression upon our psyche that transcends logic and reason. This is also why tools like tarot and astrology can help with interpreting our intuition or translating the unseen - they are symbolic archetypes that are more digestible for the intuitive mind and allow us to interpret our own meaning.
Carl Jung believed (and personally, I do too), that the subconscious plays a crucial role in balancing the conscious mind, providing a source of creativity, and helping individuals navigate complex life situations by surfacing important symbols and themes. It’s a built-in tool that helps us to self-actualize.
The beauty of our subconscious is that it communicates with us in order to make something hidden, revealed. The symbols and sensations that continue to show up are a message telling us what we need to make conscious - to see, to heal, or to embody and integrate into our being. Our art and our identity is a vehicle to process these messages.
You can explore the language of your subconscious through dreamwork (posing a question before your sleep and seeing what answers might arise in your dreams), automatic writing, doodling, daydreaming or expressive movement — activities that bypass your conscious mind, and even by simply cultivating a mindset of curiosity and contemplation — allowing your mind to play with something that piques your curiosity without having to immediately understand it.
Whatever your subconscious mind is showing you, explore what’s here. Get curious. Use your art to reveal it’s message.
EXCERCISES
- Observe/Receive: Make a moodboard or write down some visual imagery or felt senses you’ve noticed appearing for you lately. Perhaps it’s a shape or object. Or a color you’re really drawn to right now or an animal you don’t normally see or notice that seems to be appearing in your life a lot recently. It could also be a sensation you keep feeling when you walk into a specific area of your house or when you’re around a certain person. Is there a recurring dream you keep having? Or a memory that keeps you up at night and makes you cringe every time you think about it? If nothing comes to mind, you can play with some of the ways you can explore the language of your subconscious that were mentioned above to start to open up this channel and access this part of your mind.
- Get Curious: When you’ve collected these symbols, ask yourself - what does this symbol or sensation mean to me? Toy with it. Contemplate it. Research It. For example, my subconscious likes to speak to me with animals and nature. There was a time in my life I kept noticing bees. They became such an impactful part of my experience that they even inspired the name of my design studio. At any other time in my life, I might see the bees and think nothing of it, but for some reason during this particular time, I would actually notice them. I’d see them around me when I was sitting in the park, or images of them stamped on items I would browse. Because I took notice, I started to get curious as to what they could mean. I researched them, but mostly I sat with them. What bees came to teach me at that point in my life was the idea of synarchy, which is a concept of joint rulership (in opposition to a hierarchy) as it relates to systems, organizations, and society at large — essentially, each person has their unique contribution to a shared mission. Richard Rudd in the incredible Gene Keys book describes it as the “self-organizing evolutionary impulse that forges us into collective consciousness by encouraging individual genius. Synarchy represents our society of the future, based on the frequency of love, truth, and wisdom working in harmony.” At the time, I was waking up to my unique gifts and understanding that in being who I naturally am and was created to be - I serve the whole, I serve life, I serve evolution. As do we all. The bees also taught me about the quantum field - but that’s another story for another day…
- Express: How can you consciously work with the messages of your subconscious in your art, brand or identity? For example, lately I’ve had a strong affinity for the color red. I realized that this love for red comes from my soul’s desire to make conscious my boldness, courage, and power. To express this and work with it, it has now become a part of my brand colors, it’s a color I wear almost every day now to embody the energy it gives me. The traits and spirit this color represents also seeps into my creative work - it powers my voice, it has given me insight into what I want to say and how I want to say it. It reminds me to be bold and to own who I am without apology - something my unconscious wants me to make conscious as a part of my own soul’s development.
How to develop a unique point-of-view for artists, brands and those discovering their personal self-expression
2. EXPLORE WHAT MATTERS
Another very immediate way to identify your personal POV and unique creative, brand or personal identity is to pay attention to what often takes up space in your conscious mind. These are the things you actively think about. What is that topic you can’t shut up about? What are you obsessed with or passionate about? Where does your curiosity often lead you when you’re in the comfort of your solitude? How about when you’re with others? What inspires you, annoys you, angers you, or saddens you about the world, life, people, yourself? What topics or questions have you thinking “what if”?
Maybe the current obsession you have with that one dinosaur isn’t just a silly nuance about you, it’s a doorway into your next creative project.
What is present for us, is what matters to us.
Your creative material is the NOW.
And the now sometimes contains remnants of the past, visions of the future, and fleeting discoveries of the passing moment that are primed to inform your next creative work.
Whatever is there, is available to work with.
I remember reading or hearing somewhere, this quote: “If you want to make good art or be an artist, think about anything but art”. This is to say, intaking too much art isn’t necessarily how we find our creative identity or develop our unique style, but rather its about what is occurring outside of our art that informs our art. It’s the combination of all that you are and all of the things that you’re intrigued by that flavors your art in a way only you can create it. If you have an interest in science, spirituality, and … bananas… why not combine those things or explore how one of them might influence your work. This is how we reclaim a sense of our creative identity. We meet ourselves where we’re at. We get excited by ourselves - what’s alive within us - instead of comparing ourselves to others. We see what can be made from what is already there, from who we already are.
As a side, but related, note: In the pursuit of our creativity and creations, it’s important to live life. If you’re overthinking your art or your business or projects, the best thing you can do is go outside and have an experience. Don’t think more about the art. This same idea can be applied to your identity - if you’re overthinking your existence as a human being and who you are - just go outside and do something. We find ourselves not by thinking about being ourselves, but by doing things and seeing if we like it. The combination of what we DO, creates our identity. And this is always subject to change and open to reinvention.
EXCERCISE
Write down answers to the questions posed in the first paragraph of this section.
When you have your thoughts gathered, ask yourself what “why”? Keep asking yourself “why” until you get to something that feels like an essential truth that resonates for you. Ex. a topic I can’t shut up about lately is Doechii. Why? Because I love her music and think she’s insanely talented. Why? Because I think her musical composition and flows are refreshingly creative, she is an exciting performer, and she exemplifies the meaning of confidence, she has a wildness to the way she makes music that feels freeing - she has the full package - I’m inspired by that. Why ? Because I am fundamentally inspired by humans self-expressing, I enjoy seeing humans express themselves without self-censorship and with full confidence.
When you’ve gone through the last exercise, do you notice any through lines? Jot them down.
Is there anything you might be inspired to create through this or that could help you reframe your own creative process or approach to your work?