An Encouragement of Hidden Creativity

There isn’t anything to say about being an artist in quarantine that hasn’t already been said. There’s a collective feeling of unknowing that can lead to anxiety and a bleak feeling at a time when (for a lot of us) our main form of escape is gone.

I miss being in a rehearsal room, I miss getting an idea for a script and just writing, and I miss just being in the room with other artists. But this isn’t the only form of creativity out there. As I’ve said before, you don’t have to do anything in quarantine. You don’t need to leave with a script, you don’t need to leave having read a library of books, and you don’t need to leave being an altered person.

But if you’re feeling a lack of creativity in these times, I’m here to talk about modes of creativity that are outside the “norm” of artistry and aren’t things we would normally consider creative. Nothing about the times we’re in are normal, so it stands to reason that creativity can hide in the activities we do in these abnormal times.

Play with Outfits

If you’re stuck at home it is easy to just sit around in the same two outfits all day (at this point I think I’m more sweatpants than a person), but there’s some valuable creativity in wearing “normal” clothes. Clash for fun.

Wear outfit mixes you haven’t worn in a long time or ever. If it’s just for yourself, have fun. Even if it’s just for a minute, there’s something about wearing clothes you would’ve worn before that can make you feel more like a human.

For essential workers who are wearing a uniform every day, this also applies. Maybe you’ll run into an outfit you like more than you think. Maybe you’ll hate what you did, but at least it’s using the creative part of your brain (even if it’s just for a minute). If you love an outfit, post it! If you don’t want to post it, just sit in the joy for a second. Finding any joy is incredibly valuable at the moment.

Daydreaming

It’s something that was frowned upon in school, but daydreaming is an incredibly valuable thing to do every once in a while. Put in some headphones and just look out a window and let your thoughts go. It’s fun to do word or image association with what you’re seeing or hearing. No pressure to write anything down. No pressure to filter anything or to think of something brilliant. This could lead you to simply thinking “that’s a tree outside” or it could lead you in some mode of escapism.

This, like the outfits, doesn’t have to be a lengthy activity. Maybe you do this for a few minutes, but that few minutes can get you away from a screen and away from the thoughts that you’ve had all of quarantine. As artists (and humans) our imaginations are a muscle we need to exercise every once in a while. Simply letting your brain go on routes it wants to go on could be a way to exercise it.

Doodling

I’ll say this right from the beginning, you do not need to be good at drawing for this to be a mode of creativity. Drawing is an art form that often gets weighed down with thoughts of “if I’m not good at it I don’t want to do it”. That is okay, especially if you don’t like drawing. But if you do, just start drawing something.

Like in high school just find a piece of paper and start. There are no rules for this. You could go in trying to draw a giraffe or you could just start drawing lines and hoping something will come of it. What I like to do is just put random lines and shapes on paper and play a game of trying to figure out what the abstract image could be. It’s one of the first types of creativity we’re exposed to in downtime. We’ve all probably been in a class bored out of our mind and just started drawing. This helped us escape the boring class. It can help us escape the situation in which we are currently in.

There are obviously countless other things that involve creativity. Journal writing, crafts, playing with recipes, etc. I wanted to list a couple that I think emphasize the main point, there’s creativity underneath things that we do every day. Creativity is what guides our lives. Even activities we feel are mundane have tons of creativity in them.

When we were kids, doing something for the first time we saw hundreds of possibilities with wide eyes. Over time, these activities just became part of life. I’ve been trying to live my life with more wide-eyed excitement. I encourage you to as well. This is not an absolute fix for whatever anxiety for what you could be feeling. This is not a requirement during quarantine. They’re simply things that could help you breathe a little easier on days where the walls feel like they’re coming in. As artists, we love escapism. There’s an escape in more things than there appears to be.