Remember Your Cape? Remember When Everything Was Bigger Than Life?
Have you ever created an image from a place of sheer exhilaration, wild with an idea you can’t keep in any longer? . . .
A Video Post, by Sebastian Michaels
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Transcript continued:
Have you ever created from a place of sorrow? In response to a great loss?
Have you ever grabbed your camera and just gotten silly with it, taking some chances you normally wouldn’t quite dare?
Have you ever gotten very, very quiet … gone off on your own, and created something out of longing … from a place of true love?
We all have so many voices inside us, so many sides to our artistic lives. But how many of these do we tap into? Our creativity is built for range and great scope — yet how easy it is to settle into a comfortable rut.
Here is my question for you:
What if you were to allow more of those other parts of you show up in your art?
What if you were to invite them in?
— Reminding yourself now and then to be more playful.
— Reminding yourself of all those things you love most, and all those things you hate or dread.
— Reminding yourself that you can take to Photoshop like a painter half crazed. (You’re allowed to be messy, you know.)
— Reminding yourself that there is poetry and magic to be found in the quiet places of light and shadow … and you can seek them out with your camera, as if hunting for Wonderland, Oz, or Middle Earth …
— Reminding yourself that it is never about the tricks or the techniques, but about finding something in your artistry that can excite and enchant you, something that can stop time.
Next time you find yourself sitting down at your computer the same way you always sit down at your computer, or next time you catch yourself walking along carrying your camera the same way you always carry your camera, I encourage you to STOP, right there, spin around in a circle, and ask yourself this question — quick:
“Who else COULD I be right now?”
Surely you have a playful, silly side. Invite it in.
Surely you have a mysterious side. Invite that in.
Surely, if you tried, you could conjure your innermost poet, start an image with an unexpected subject in an altogether unexpected way, and dream up something exquisitely fantastic …
Do that. And set about it as if undertaking a grand adventure.
There are so many sides to each of us. When we are children we play so often and so freely that bringing out another facet of our imagination is as easy as hiding behind a couch and emerging wearing a sheet as a cape.
As adults we tighten up. We take things so darn seriously. We forget to play.
I urge you to play.
Your imaginative world is rich beyond measure. Put your cape back on and go find it again.
– Sebastian