What does it mean to be a creative mind ?

For as far as I can remember, art has always been in my life. It has been my escape, my therapy, my sanctuary and my distraction. All at once sometimes. But it was not easy, has never been easy let alone a done deal to focus on. Like many creative person, I struggle a lot to own it for the fear of being rejected , made fun of and not being taken seriously.

So I make a point of honor to define what is a creative mind.

A creative : what is it exactly?

A creative is a person with the ability to invent, create and develop original Ideas, especially in the arts. (Ref : collinsdictionnary.com ) I can add the Robert and Oxford dictionaries definition, but we will stick to this.

Historically and scientifically, the ability to formulate and develop creative ideas comes from the right hemisphere of our brains. Our right brains are the part in our mind that generate the artistic fiber in us. In some people, it is well alive and dominant ; when in others, is dormant or non existent. They in this case, only rely on their left side brains to fully function. Those people are more analytic and logical in their ways of proceeding with anything in their lifes. But for the creatives, it is or can be completely different.

There is fluidity in creation, it os about inspiration more than it would be about logic or reason. You will hear notions such as : the heart, gut feelings, intuition...

A creative person will doubt like anybody with or without reasons. Yet, they will still go with the gut feeling, their intuition instead of what the logic will order them to do.

A creative person can be an artist, painter, poet and poetess, a writer, a photographer, creator and innovator... you name it. They are most likely to be about the details and the esthetic and to that you can add the practicalities.

The stigma of being a creative person :

Being a creative person means in many people 's subconscience that we are lazy, dreamy, delusional, vain, stuck up, live in a fairy tale glassed house , egotistical, etc. I guess, to have studied art and artist, some of those traits can be found in many artists if not a lot. Yeah, you can rest assure, we are sensitive about out sh*t ! We don't play about it. Why would we? It takes a lot of time, hours , days and nights, weeks , years or a whole life time for "history makers" artists to transcend in their respective fields. And you want them to take it easy, lightly like that? A craft they took their whole life to improve amd master ? This is where I bring my Nigerian / black British people in there with their : Are you mad ?! ( insert British accent!) Listen mate ! just kidding ...

But seriously, everything that a human being does is not to be taken lightly or else we might miss the message if there is any .

The stigma of being a creative if we must rewind time, stems from the educational system failure to instill in kids' minds the natural curiosity we must have to learn anything. A skill, a lesson, anything.

I will not lie to you, my readers, I got bored easily and heavily at school. I was disconnected and zoning out as soon as the professor will start uttering words from their mouths. Psychologists might think maybe I had attention deficit a.k.a ADHD. But as you and I are not psychologist, we both are going to refrain from diagnosing me , 😉😅.

Still, I was learning, strangely, if not at the same rate, I was learning faster than the ones we all knew to be A students. The only thing it was that it was at my own pace. By myself. Alone. I was not distracted by a preconceived way of doing something. I hated it. Not learning, this I always seek it, but school, the place... yeah you could easily miss me with it. But again as an African girl, I would not dare not going to school. For me it was also another escape from an extremely toxic environment: which was also not helping me focus with any of my homeworks and tasks.

For as far as I can remember, art has always been in my life. It has been my escape, my therapy, my sanctuary and my distraction. All at once sometimes.

To the point of me wanting to make it my career. But, as mentioned above, I am of African descent, so it always has been "hell no" from the "sperm donor" and "child bearer" because for them and many other African parents, donors and bearers, "being an Artist is Not a job" ... now : look at them dancing to all those college dropouts, making thousands if not millions of dollars per hits and concert tickets sales ... while you with your master and PHD degrees are still looking for the other source of income that will make the difference! You will think with all that education they will have some senses or open mindedness, but "hell no" they are closed like Guantanamo in their minds, everything can enter but nothing that makes sense gets out of it .

*kissing my teeth Tchuuiips ...

*Bombastic side eye- Criminal offensive side eye 😒

Then they come at the end asking you for money, oga, which one ? No money for you. I don't have no money for you. Remember : "I was a disgrace to the family. "

Personally, although I use the left brain as much as I need, I love my right brain more as it gives me more liberty in my actions, it is fluid, not restricted. It is not utopic to be a creative person, I see it as a blessing and a curse cause I, just like many other creatives, can adapt to so many scenarios in life. While others will go with a preconceived plan. Which is not bad at all... that much, at least. We need our minds and logic to properly reflect, think things through and resolve them. And it takes critical thinking skills, above all, to proceed. But being a creative does not mean being out of logic and out of our minds. Although some creatives minds are really out of their minds ( hello Kanye West! Mister Call me YEEZUS ! Yeah right?! ), we are simply adaptative and prompt to find our own ways of doing stuffs. Not unruly, far from it actually.

The goal of a creative / artist :

It is a well known fact that the goal of any creative or artiste is or should be to reflect the time they live in. To be the storytellers, the lens, the glasses, game changers, the troubleblazers of their societies in the century.

For that, there is amends to make between the how, the when and the why ... how to do it ? by simply accepting the inevitable truth : being misunderstood.

It is a knowledge and motto even, that needs to be blasted in every art center, museums and library :

If you want to be an artist, get ready to be misunderstood...

And about time, nobody has the keys to it.

But if we could, do you think you could still borrow it ? Knowing all the billionaires that exist and how they are. We will all be doomed. Nobody would have had anything left, but crumbs. They will buy it all, without no seconds thoughts of the 90%. And that is where we are kind of equals. We all have the same 24h but we use it differently, this is a no brainer.

In fine,

We should create with an intention behind it, a goal, a purpose, with the thought of the future and the past living both in the present, in mind. What was done before has been great, what is done now will be remembered and will change or impact tomorrow.

My "oeuvres" should reflect who I am, where, how, why, and when.

We create because we want, can, should, feel and like it. We give to our creations all of us, mind- body and soul. We use our personal experiences, good and bad to provide something to a world so intense and cruel at times, leaving us with nothing of our own humanity.

In other words, as a creative, I think what we should all remember and have probably struggled with is : to not feel the pressure to create, be and do everything at the same time , release something as quick as possible because we are running out of time, we don't want to be forgotten. Although, it is a very understandable fear for a creative person, it is still useless to the bigger picture, we normally aim for as such people.

Being an artist is being an observer and a critical thinker still ... it is being profoundly human. Therefore what matters is the impact and the quality of our work not the quantity of work we have put out.

Side notes : can we stop waiting for an artist to pass away to give them their dues, royalties, recognitions and flowers 💐 ? Thank you.

Cause, Were you blind when they were alive to not see the value and impact of their work ? ( bombastic side eye - criminal offensive side eye 😒 )

So, are you a proud creative like me or not ?or are you hiding and waiting, in hopes to be discovered one day by a very big successful art director or agency like me back in the day when I was delusional ?

Stand up, Create this website, post your work, protect your work still but live life out through your talents and gifts. And never apologize for being a creative mind.

THIS IS AKOMA ... 's creative mind that wrote this blog article.