Willing to do the Work

My dear friend Laurel Englehardt has her work on display at Avalon in Alpharetta, GA. We attended her show opening reception this past weekend and it looked fabulous. Over the years Laurel has worked and created a concept that identifies her work, and seeing your art framed and hanging on the wall makes all that hard work worth it all.

So many people talk with me about how they are not creative. They do their job and tell me they have no capacity for creativity outside of what they do professionally. I refute those statements because I believe that everyone is creative simply in different ways. Some people take time to learn how they are creative and then invest more time to perfect their own style. Some try lots of different methods, techniques and art mediums to discover what they enjoy. And still others find their passion early and develop their skill over many years of practice, work and study.

There is fine art, handmade craft, recycled works, repurposing, even reinventing art. There is abstract, modern, classical, found art, folk art and almost anything goes. Almost anything can be defined as creative. Because art is such a wide area and so subjective, not everyone thinks what they do is creative. Not everyone likes all art, and not everyone understands the work involved in creating art. When I see artists like Laurel who work a corporate job AND create amazing work in their personal time, they take away everyone’s excuses for not being creative. Being able to turn off your corporate life and turn on your art life takes energy, commitment and passion. Seeing her show reminded me that everyone is creative, just not everyone is willing to do the work to create.

Congratulations Laurel on a fantastic show and for taking away all our excuses. Thank you for sticking to it, learning, and sharing your beautiful work. Well done and keep up the good work. Keep sharing of yourself and encouraging others to tap into their own creativity.