According to most people, a brewery visit counts as relaxation, while making art is supposed to lead somewhere: a stronger skill, a body of work, maybe eventually a shop or a booth at the fall craft fair. That sounds reasonable at first, but it doesn’t really hold up. Relaxing and creating are both just ways of spending unstructured time. The difference is not something inherent in art; it is something we assigned to it. Somewhere along the way — maybe by taking our cues from the people around us — we decided creative time has to mean something.

Somewhere along the way, we sorted our low-stakes free time into two categories — the activities that are allowed to just be enjoyable, and the ones that have to justify themselves by becoming something. A drink with my husband on a Friday afternoon doesn’t have to become a side hustle. But the hour spent with the gel plate quietly got assigned a destination: get better, make something worth showing, build toward something. I didn’t consciously decide this; it just happened. The same way it happens to every hobby I’ve ever slowly stopped doing.

Once our creative time has to earn its keep and an afternoon at the brewery doesn’t, we start protecting the one that actually costs us nothing to protect (an afternoon out) – and the one that actually needs protecting often goes by the wayside (our creative time). An afternoon at the brewery becomes me time, with no expectations. Every time our art doesn’t produce something, that idea gets quietly reinforced: see, nothing came of it. This activity has to prove itself first.

Treating our creativity this way isn’t proof that creativity matters more or less than downtime. It’s proof that we haven’t given it the same unexamined permission we have given to other things. The brewery was never the point – the pointlessness of the visit was. And that’s exactly the kind of permission that a creative hobby needs, too.

What would it feel like to let your creative time be as unaccountable as a Friday afternoon with no agenda?

There are two distinct feelings coursing through my body and mind right now just thinking about this, each contradicting the other. I want to put my art out there so that I can be more visible. I want people to recognize me as the woman who unashamedly often makes – and shares – mediocre art. I want to support others in becoming visible. I want to help other would-be creative women find more joy in art making, so I know I need to be online more. I want to post, but I also want to hide at the exact same time. There’s a part of me that is afraid to share my work. There’s a part of me that is afraid of being seen.

I can actually hear my rational self giving advice to my afraid self– Just get over it. Share the messy stuff. “Done is better than perfect.” It’s just art. And all of that is true. It also completely misses the point.

It’s true in the sense that I need to just get over myself and post pictures. But it misses the point because there’s something deeper going on that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. It’s not just a matter of pushing through, it’s a matter of solving the problem that keeps me hesitant.

Those of us passionate about creativity often fuse the art we make with our identities, for better or for worse. So a rough piece doesn’t just feel like a rough piece – it feels like proof of our rough self. Sharing unfinished work means risking someone seeing our unfinished parts, too.

The less than perfect parts.

The parts we try to keep hidden, often even from ourselves.

And sometimes sharing completed work is even harder, because we don’t have an “it’s not finished” excuse to lean on. We are so invested in our creativity that it becomes part of our identity, and a rejection (or even a less than enthusiastic response) can feel very personal. It’s not just the work they’re rejecting; it feels as though they are rejecting us, as well.

The more we hide the in-progress, imperfect work, the more curated our creative life looks from the outside, making the gap between what we make and what we show feel even more like something to be ashamed of. That gap can be paralyzing, especially as it gets larger.

The truth is – being a person is a messy proposition. We’re complex beings. That’s not just true of me, but it’s true of you, and every person you connect with. It’s perfectly natural to want to put your best foot forward. But it’s also stifling.

This isn’t a confidence problem that we can fix with a simple pep talk. It goes deeper than confidence. It’s an identity problem to be wrestled with. The work is not an accurate reflection of who we actually are. Or maybe it is – and we need to learn to embrace our whole selves, even our messy selves, even our rough, incomplete selves. The selves that sometimes make mediocre art (raising my hand, here).

I know “just pushing through” can sound like good advice, but I’m not sure it’s what I need right now. Separating the art we make from ourselves takes time. It takes being gentle with ourselves and understanding the real issue. We need to speak to that.

I need to remind myself that I am not perfect, and neither are the people who might see my art. I don’t just need to remind myself of this, I need to find a way to internalize it. There’s no shame in not being an expert at something. The important thing is that you keep showing up and putting in the reps, doing the work. I am convinced that the admirable part of art making isn’t what you end up with; it’s the fact that you showed up for yourself and put yourself out there. That can be a big deal – I know! – even if you aren’t sharing your work publicly.

Last Saturday, I hosted a co-create with some of my art friends over Zoom. I painted master sheets with watercolors and turned them into one-page booklets, or zines. I was nervous about sharing them with my friends, but of course, I had to – especially when someone asked to see what I’d been working on.

I’ve decided to go one step further. I have used a picture of these zines as the image for this article. There’s a part of me that wants to type Let me know what you think about them but I’m not going to ask, because it’s really irrelevant. They are my art pieces, and I wanted to share them. That’s the part that matters.

So, if you’re like me, and sometimes hesitant to share your artwork, feel free to post a picture in the comments. I promise you, we’ll love you just for showing up!

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I realized it’s not that I don’t have time to make art – it’s that I’ve quietly prioritized my creative time below almost everyone else’s needs, so there’s never any time left.

Most people would call this bad time management. I’m too busy, too scattered. I need to time block (something my brain rebels against after about seven seconds) or schedule a creative date and stick to it. Those are the easy answers.

Each of these resonates just a little, but not completely (except the time blocking; it doesn’t resonate at all. That’s almost never the right answer for me). It feels as though if I managed my schedule better, this would all be a non-issue.

But when I sit with this, I think there’s something deeper going on.

It’s not a scheduling problem. It’s not a time management problem. It’s a ranking problem. I’ve – we’ve? – absorbed the idea that creative time is optional (even while trying to build a creative business) in a way that laundry, email, and other people’s needs aren’t. Creative time always loses the negotiation before it even starts.

Every time we let something else win, it quietly confirms that creative time really is the lowest priority – which makes it even easier to sacrifice next time. Those twenty minutes get smaller and smaller until they disappear entirely.

So, this isn’t about finding more time. It’s about noticing where our own creative time sits on the list, and asking who put it there (Spoiler alert: I ranked my own list). Once we see the ranking, we can actually start to move it.

What would it feel like to let your art win the negotiation, just once? On purpose?

I think I’m going to find out!

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Creative culture worships the streak. The daily practice. The artist who shows up no matter what. It does this in a couple of ways.

It sets a binary standard. You either kept the streak or you didn’t. There’s no partial credit for making something three days out of seven, or for thinking about your work all week even if you didn’t touch it. The streak framework turns a fundamentally messy, nonlinear human activity into a pass/fail system — and most people fail it regularly. Despite what you may see on the internet, most of us are not making art daily.

It was never designed for people who are already fragile about their creative identity. The “show up every day” advice was largely built for and by people who already believed they were artists. For someone still on the outside of that identity — someone who wonders if they’re allowed to call themselves creative at all — a broken streak doesn’t just feel like a scheduling problem. It feels like confirmation of their worst suspicion about themselves.

Here’s what’s really happening: Gaps aren’t failure – they’re part of the actual rhythm of creative work for most of us. The fallow period has a function. Stopping isn’t quitting; it’s often just life moving through you in a different way for a while.

When the streak breaks – and it almost inevitably does – it doesn’t just feel like a missed day; it feels like proof. Proof that you’re not a real creative, not disciplined enough, not serious enough. The streak myth turns a normal human pause into an identity wound.

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Several years ago, I set out to journal every day. I made it 182 days if I recall. Maybe more than that. Then I missed two days because I had neck surgery and was in the hospital. I couldn’t keep my journal practice up for those two days. Did I feel like it was a normal human pause? A legitimate reason to miss journaling? No. I felt like see, I can’t even do that consistently. And that reinforced the notion that I’m just not good at commitments.

And that’s how the spiral starts.

Miss one day, feel bad. Feel bad, avoid the work. Avoid the work, miss another day. Now the streak is broken AND there’s a layer of shame sitting between you and the thing you wanted to make. The longer the gap, the heavier the shame, the harder it is to go back. The myth doesn’t just fail people — it actively makes returning harder.

There’s something even deeper underneath: finishing requires us to claim the work as ours. To say I made this, this is what I made. For someone who isn’t sure they’re allowed to call himself creative, that claim can feel enormous – almost presumptuous.

The unfinished pile grows. Each addition quietly reinforces the story that you’re someone who doesn’t finish things. Eventually the pile itself becomes its own evidence – another reason not to even start something new.

Here’s the good news: finishing doesn’t have to mean publishing, sharing on the internet, or even showing someone. It can just mean: done, for now, by me. Closing that loop privately is still closing the loop. And every small finish makes the next one slightly less frightening.

I’d like to invite you to think of one thing – one small thing. Not a project, just a piece of a project. Something that could be declared done today. Not perfect. Not shareable. Just finished enough to set it down for now.

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The standard explanation for all these unfinished projects is usually perfectionism – you can’t finish because you want it to be perfect. There’s some truth to that, but it’s not the whole story. Perfectionism itself is often a proxy for something more uncomfortable: the fear of vulnerability.

We fear putting ourselves out there and we fear judgment, so it’s easy to want things to be perfect when it’s finished. And, it’s perfectly natural. It’s our brain trying to protect us from uncomfortable emotions by insisting on perfect products before we declare them finished.

An unfinished piece offers emotional protection. It exists in a safe, private space where it can still become anything. The moment you finish it — I mean really finish it — it becomes a thing that can be seen, evaluated, and found wanting. Finishing is an act of exposure, and for many of us exposure is the actual danger we’re avoiding.

Finishing asks something of us that starting never does; it asks us to stand behind the work. Not to defend it, just to acknowledge it as ours. That’s a surprisingly loaded ask for someone who’s still making peace with calling herself a creative.

Each piece we step away from adds quietly to that pile that haunts us. And the pile tells a story – not a true one, but a persistent one. After a while, it stops feeling like a collection of works-in-progress and starts feeling like evidence.

Finished doesn’t have to mean anyone sees it. It just means that you put it down on purpose, with intention, rather than drifting away from it. That’s the whole thing. Intentionally done.

Look around – is there a piece that you can make progress on? An unfinished piece that maybe just needs a couple of marks or some contrasting color to be done. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be acknowledged as something you created.

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I keep walking past it. I keep telling myself I’ll get to it when things calm down, when I have a real stretch of time, when I’m in a better headspace. You probably know this particular bargain. Not yet. Later. When I deserve it. When I’m better.

What’s interesting — and a little humbling — is that the times I most need to make something are exactly the times I’m most convinced I shouldn’t.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which means a lot of well-meaning content about self-care is about to flood every feed. Bubble baths. Journaling prompts. Breathing exercises. And those things are fine. I’m not here to argue with a bath.

But I want to talk about something that doesn’t get said plainly enough: making things is good for you. Not in a vague, inspirational-poster way. In a real, this-is-what-your-nervous-system-is-asking-for way.

When we make something with our hands — mix paint, tear paper, pull a gel print — something shifts. The part of the brain that runs the worry loop has to step aside, because our hands are busy and our eyes are tracking color and texture and what’s happening right now in front of us. It’s not that the hard things go away. It’s that we get a few minutes of not being in charge of solving them. That’s not escapism. That’s regulation.

I’m not qualified to say that, some part of me thinks, even as I write it. And I know that thought well — it’s the same one that keeps us from picking up the brush.

Here’s what I’ve noticed, though. The women I make art with aren’t coming to my workshops to produce something worth hanging. They’re coming because for a couple of hours, they get to be someone who is just playing. Not performing. Not achieving. Not managing anything. The release on their faces when the first print lifts off the plate — messy, unpredictable, entirely theirs — isn’t the look of someone who made a pretty thing. It’s the look of someone who remembered something.

We talk about creativity like it’s a talent some people have and others don’t. Like it’s a reward for the people who were good at art class. But creativity isn’t a personality trait. It’s a capacity, and it belongs to all of us, and somewhere along the way most of us got talked out of it.

That talking-out-of-it has a cost. Not a dramatic one. A quiet one. The kind where you stop reaching for the colored pens and start reaching for your phone instead. Where the things you used to make for fun start feeling too risky, too childish, too hard to justify.

We’re in a mental health moment right now — collectively, genuinely, not just as a hashtag. And I think part of what we’re hungry for is permission to do the things that don’t produce anything useful. To make a mess. To not be good at something and do it anyway. To spend forty-five minutes pressing paint onto paper with no outcome in mind except the feeling of having done it.

That’s not indulgence. That’s maintenance.

What would it feel like to make something today — not because it’s good for you, not because you’ve earned it — but just because you wanted to?

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What does it mean to say you’re not a good artist? On the surface it sounds like an objective assessment of your skill level. And it may be. But really look underneath it and you’ll often find that you are anticipating judgment, preemptively apologizing for taking up creative space, and protecting yourself from being evaluated.

I’m guilty of all of those. When I tell someone I’m not a great artist, what I’m really saying is something like, “I don’t think I’m good at this, so you don’t have to judge me.” I guess I want people to know that I’m not putting myself on some kind of pedestal. I’m also giving the person a pass for judging me. “I know I’m not good at this, so it’s okay if you don’t think so either.”

But where do these thoughts come from? Why do we often feel the need to apologize for daring to be creative?

For me, it came partly from comparison to an older brother who was extremely gifted. He once – somewhere around 14 or 15 years old – drew a deer leaping off the page without a reference photo. And it looked like a stag leaping off the page at me. My brother was six years older than I, so even if our levels of talent had been equal, the comparison would have fallen short.

I loved playing with color and texture, even as a young child; that should have been encouraged. Instead, I was told to “leave the art to your brother.” He got extra classes and a variety of supplies. I got crayons and coloring books, and then told when I didn’t stay in the lines.

To be clear – I don’t ‘blame’ my parents or feel sorry for myself about this. It’s just what happened. But remembering this has helped me regain some of the joy of creativity. The fact that I’m not a great artist shouldn’t be read pejoratively. There are lots of things that I love doing that I’m not particularly great at and there are things I love doing that I am good at. It just so happens that art and creativity are where the emotional charge is. Learning to soothe that charge has made a huge difference in how I approach my creativity.

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That phrase – “not good enough” – said too many times, becomes a gate we stand in front of every time we want to be creative, every time we want to make something. It’s not merely a neutral description – it’s an active discouragement. Nothing about the phrase “not good enough” encourages most people to create.

But here’s the thing – most of us Creative Wallflowers don’t have a skills problem. Skills are learnable and practicable. They’re improvable. What many of us – raising my hand here – have is an exposure problem. Making something feels like making yourself vulnerable to judgment and rejection, and that vulnerability can feel unbearable at worst, anxiety-)provoking at best.

If you’re willing to work to reframe the statement “I’m not very good at this” it can stay. But make it mean I’m not very good at this yet. I’m learning rather than I don’t belong here. (You do!) As I said above, skills are learnable. And that feeling of exposure is something you can get used to, in small doses, in safe spaces.

You don’t have to stop saying “I’m not very good at this” but I’d like to invite you to notice – the next time you do say it or think it – what are you protecting?

At that time (2012?) I couldn’t buy a plate locally. I guess I could have ordered a plate, but for whatever reason, I thought making one was a better idea. I gathered all the supplies called for in a recipe I found on the internet – glycerin, rubbing alcohol, gelatin, and something to make my plate in – and set out to make a plate. Of course, like a lot of DIY projects, it ended up costing more than buying a plate would have! It probably took me more time, too, than ordering one!

That process went fine and my first plate was an 11” x 14” plate – and I loved it! I especially loved that it was easy to print to the edges of my paper. Those first few prints were a bit of a learning curve. I was not only learning how to use the plate, but what I liked as well. I didn’t get stencils and masks right off, so I often had more white space than I really preferred. Eventually, I was cutting my own stencils and printing multiple layers. I loved sitting down with my plate to play.

I felt free. I was free.

I was free to play and experiment because I didn’t have a lot of preconceived notions about what a good print looked like. I didn’t really know what I’d do with them; I just kept printing. Eventually I found some uses for my prints – and I admit that was gratifying – but the best part was just printing them.

Some of the prints had horrible color combinations when I tried to stencil with complementary colors, and sometimes the paint color didn’t layer the way I expected it to. It took me a long time to learn how to work with opacity and transparency. I learned so much about printing and my paints. I was hooked!

No matter what else I played at, I kept coming back to my gel plate. There was something about it – not just the results, but the feelings. I loved the excitement of peeling a print off the plate; I still do. Because it was easy to set up and clean up, I found it a wonderful creative activity for when I just had a few minutes. If I didn’t like a print, I realized it just didn’t have enough layers. I was creating some great prints, and I didn’t have to draw or paint realistically. But more importantly, I was really enjoying myself. I felt like I was in my zone of genius. I could print for hours – and I often did!

I don’t remember the exact moment when gel printing went from being something I do and became the thing I do. It probably happened over time. But I do remember the moment I realized it.

I hadn’t been able to print for a couple of days for some reason when I entered my studio. I sat down with my plate and as soon as I started rolling paint, I sighed. I felt like I was where I belonged. A cat at my feet and a brayer in my hand. I felt at home.

All these years later, I still love gel printing. It’s still my thing.

For one reason, the world of gel printing is constantly evolving – there’s just so much you can do with a gel plate these days! There are so many techniques to try. But the main reason I keep coming back to my plate is that it’s the one medium I can always get lost in. I can follow my curiosity down a rabbit hole if I’d like, or I can stick with the techniques I know and enjoy. I get to play with paint and texture – two of my favorite things in art – and when I’m finished, there is a pile of colorful, sometimes beautiful, papers that I can enjoy thumbing through. There’s something colorful in the world that wasn’t there before. There’s something very fulfilling about seeing a pile of prints you made and knowing that the world has a little bit more beauty in it than it had before.

That feeling – of being lost in something you love, of time disappearing and color and texture appearing – that’s what I want for you, too. I hope you’ve found your creative thing. The thing you can get lost in. The thing that makes you care about the play and exploration, more than the final product. What is that medium for you? Do you know? If you don’t know yet, be assured that there’s something out there – some art process or technique – that you can lose yourself in. I hope that you’ll allow yourself the time to play with whatever draws you. Maybe it will be your thing.