It’s a rainy day and I’m up early with my cup of coffee in my favorite comfy spot.

I like to scroll through my emails first thing to be sure I don’t miss anything important, and whilst doing so, I came across an email with the title, “Anti-design: The secrets you need to know”.  I was immediately intrigued.  I clicked on the link and read the full article.  It spoke to my soul!

Not a second after I finished, I came across another email that included a section called, “A quiet creative rebellion”.  Can you see the theme here?

Rules and I have a love/hate relationship.  I like the structure they give, but I want to push back on them ALL the time!

I bristle when someone tries to put me in a box, or categorize me.  Whether it be in politics, religion, my style, my art – anything!  Just please, please, PUH-LEASE, do NOT label me.  It makes me feel confined and suffocated immediately.

Can you relate?

Perhaps you’re still stuck on the word, ‘anti-design’.  Let me share what I learned!

Anti-design is:

• openmindedness
• expanding ones approach to designing
• throwing out the rule book
• asking ‘why not’ instead of listening to ‘do not’

Anti-design is a reactionary design approach, meaning that it always manifests itself in ways that oppose the mainstream design consensus.   – Grace Fussell

YES PLEASE to all of the above!

Read Grace’s full article HERE.

Creative Rebellion

In ‘A Quiet Creative Rebellion’, Delight Rogers of Creative Delight Studio shares her discovery that she does not like to be labeled as a certain type of artist.  She states:

I don’t need to cling to an identity—whether it’s “portrait artist,” “floral artist,” or anything in between. Because the thread that runs through all my work—portraits, figures, blooms—is still me.  My style.  My heart.  My way of seeing the world…

It’s time for all of us to let go of any restrictive art identities we’ve been carrying, and make a little more room for wonder.

-Delight Rogers

Oh how I can relate to that!

I dabble in ALL KINDS of art: watercolor, mixed media, portraits, florals, black and white line drawings, collage, hand lettering, etc. etc. etc.

I’ll go full throttle into alcohol inks for a week or two, then feel drawn back to a more controlled medium like pen and ink.  After some time, I’ll long for the beauty and flow of watercolors.  At some point, I’ll get the urge to play with my handmade papers and create a collage.  Next, I’ll get an idea of how I can combine ALL of the above! Some days I just want to lounge on the couch with my iPad and create beautiful digital art!

All of the above is my art, and most of it is from this year!  I don’t want to lock myself into one form of creative expression just for the algorithm, or because that’s how you get popular.

I need to be able to be ME and let myself go wherever my creativity takes me.

We’ve all been told, “You must find one medium and stick to it.” or,  “You won’t succeed unless you find a specific niche and stay in your lane”.  While there is benefit to doing that, I just can’t!

I follow very successful people who stick to one medium like Alex Kincaid who does watercolor florals, and I also follow very successful people like Peggy Dean of  ‘The Pigeon Letters’ who does EVERYTHING.

I have great respect for both of these highly successful ladies, but I am much more like Peggy, and her success (she has 181,000 followers on Instagram alone!) lets me know it’s possible to follow my creativity, and as Grace Fussell says above, ask, “Why not?” instead of listening to “Do not”.

Conclusion

The moral of this story is, if you feel stifled trying to stay in your lane, stick to one niche, or create art in only one medium, then don’t!  If staying with one medium and creating a beautiful business around it feels good to you, then do it!

BOTH are okay.  The key is to stay true to yourself and your creativity, because when you do that, it shows up in your work as authentic and meaningful.

Friends, go forth and be authentically you!  Follow your creativity with openmindedness and free yourself from stifling labels.  Let me know if this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you!

Kim