Creativity is a tenacious spirit. For some, the force is palpable from the start, the angel on the shoulder, the thing you cannot not do. She manifests in the masterpieces of child prodigies – Mozart, Picasso, Jane Austen, Stevie Wonder. For the vast majority like me, we hear her soft drumbeat at a tender age, but are distracted by the loud gong of life beseeching us to corporations, classrooms or cradles. Still, the creative spirit worms her way into our lesson plans, marketing campaigns, lullabies and stockpots. The spirit moves in us, in obvious and subtle ways, as we search for passion and purpose on our respective journeys.

I finally stared down the persistent, creative spirit, who doggedly followed me to cooking school, into my garden bed, at the college lecture podium and even while teaching high school sex ed classes. I have finally given her the acknowledgment, time and space she deserves. I now tune into the cadence of that soft drumbeat from earlier days, inspired and purpose-filled while expressing my own creativity and exploring ways of making art.

Yo-Yo Ma spoke on the power of creating art in 2019, suggesting in part:

 “We have a bigger purpose…It’s never art for art’s sake, because even if I do it for myself in my head, I have an ideal. I’m actually trying to take something — a construct, a concept, a theory — and then I want to make it visible, I want to make it audible, I want to make it tactile. I want to make it felt.”  (Source)