“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” ~ Jean Dubuffet

There’s a spark that flickers within all of us.

Sometimes it burns and burns and catches fire.

Yet for others, it’s put out by the occasionally cruel world or, worse, by ourselves.

There are legendary, and frequent, sad stories of this fire growing out of control—consuming the talent, the person, or both—but there are more stories of flames that could light the entire night sky, for all the world to enjoy—and it’s these that we’ll celebrate within this particular piece.

Here are 26 signs of an artistic, creative soul:

1. We don’t wait for inspiration—we are the inspiration.

2. We might still have a day job, but that doesn’t hinder creative—or productivity.

3. We believe in ourselves, even when it feels like the world does not.

4. We are tenacious—and not only because we know that an artistic temperament is dogmatic, but because we have no choice but to keep on creating.

5. While we believe in ourselves, we also believe in the talent of others—we drink in the art and work of our peers and we learn from it whenever possible.

6. We know that our early work is definitely different from our emerging, more sculpted talent—and we can’t wait to forever witness our own growth continually take shape.

7. We take breaks from producing in order to live, but we never take breaks from being creative; finding fodder in life too.

8. We never work tomorrow when we can work today.

9. We appreciate other art forms.

10. Creative souls come in a variety of colors and styles, but one thing that regularly matches is our passion, our drive and our willingness to be different.

11. We think “weird” is a compliment.

12. We don’t follow the rules of tried-and-true molds from previous artists—we create fresh, new ones.

13.  We may or may not have good business sense, but we absolutely see the benefits—and joys—of networking.

14. When we tell people that we’re “self-employed,” we don’t care if they think it’s code for “unemployed.”

15. Even when “self-employed” feels like it translates to “unemployed,” we continue forth with our dreams because we can’t do anything else.

16. Our work clothes and our play clothes are often the exact same thing.

17. We’re observant—we may or may not be empaths (many of us are), but all of us have “observant” encrypted within our DNA.

18. We expect failure.

19. And then we get back up.

20. Time does not exist when we are working within our medium.

21. Whether introverted or extroverted, we see alone time as a way to rejuvenate, and we see social opportunities as a way to become inspired.

22. We believe in ourselves, but we can be pretty harsh critics too.

23. We generally have problems with authority, because we embody innovation.

24. We aren’t afraid to ask questions.

25. We care more about quality than quantity (and this includes public opinion).

26. We’re moody—and we take advantage of this with our art. 

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

~ Steve Jobs

~

Sometimes creative souls are misunderstood. Walk the Talk with Waylon Lewis & Ana Forrest, because we all need healthy ways to work through our pain:

~

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Opensource.com