I always knew I'd be an artist from an early age yet I didn't start to actually focus on making that happen until I was around the age of 25. Until then I took the same art classes that everyone else took and followed the more financially safe path in life, 2 years of community college then a 5 year enlistment in the US Marine Corps. It wasn't until the middle of my military enlistment that I was thrust back into the world of art for good. I'm 38 as of today and I've been through a long battle with reclaiming my calling as an artist. The following information is derived from the past 14 years of my own personal experience and journey to win back my creative freedom. It might be important to note that I have no formal schooling as an artist but I've sought out and participated in all the appropriate avenues for my own growth as a creative person to this point.

Creative blocks come in all shapes and sizes and affect each and every person differently. I'm no stranger to them but I've managed to figure out a few things that I think can help anyone to get past them. Here's a list of things that I think are very important to consider in helping you get past creative blocks:

Don't Believe the Hype
If your like me you've been surrounded by people who love you, friends and family alike, who are quick to compliment the creative work you make but fearful of the thought that you might "try to make it" as an artist. "You'll starve, you'll perish, you'll cut your ear off and live in isolation" cry the naysayers and I can see why they would. Our good friend Vincent Van Gogh had a rough go at his career in art. Actually, his career was never much of a career at all having sold only one painting before ending his own life. This seems to be the source of most of the fears that people have about being an artist and making a living. It's tough to get over, especially for parents, but believe me when I say there's no reason to believe that hype anymore. Van Gogh lived in different times than we live in now, in a world where it was much easier to become detached and out of touch. Today there are artists from all walks of life in every discipline you can imagine making their way just fine. You have to understand that creativity is something that, when it burns inside of you, cannot be extinguished by circumstance. It thrives in all climates and can be a companion for your entire life. You're in control over your abilities to create and to connect with others. No one but you holds your fate. In today's day and age of global connection we're to be held accountable for our own creative lives and what we make of them so don't listen to anyone else. Don't let their fears block you, just get out there and create.

Don't label yourself
A label's function is to define something, explain it, and put a name to it which works well when it's something that doesn't need to change like a can of original Coke. The problem is that when you label yourself "A painter", "A sculptor", "A guitar player" and so on you lock yourself into those disciplines in a way that may not seem so obvious. I believe that if your creative in one area you have the ability to create in any area. The fact is that we're all born into and out of creation so we're pretty much hard-wired to create. Give any child a crayon and a piece of paper and they'll create, without fear or hesitation, some pretty interesting things. We're all creative and those of us that choose to pursue it further have even more of an ability to create on many levels. I always find it odd when I invite artist's of different disciplines to draw the figure at my gallery on friday nights and they say that they don't draw. I'm talking about musicians, poets, even painters and designers. I understand that some people just aren't interested in drawing but when I ask why they don't want to even try they say I'm a musician not an artist, or that they write and not draw. I see potential problems when someone holds onto that singular label.

I wonder why people are so surprised when they find out that artist's like John Mellencamp, Tony Bennet, Miles Davis, and John Lennon also drew and painted well. Of course they do because they're creative people and why shouldn't they be good at those things. I'd be willing to bet that most of the people that are very successful at one discipline of creativity are also good at many others as well. Ever heard of the term Renaissance man? Anyone that's knowledgeable in many disciplines rates this label and yes it's a label but it's an encompassing label meaning you understand many disciplines of knowledge, art, and life. Find someone who studies many different avenues of creativity and ask them how often they get blocked creatively and I'll bet they'll say never.

I was cooking at my family's home one year for Christmas eve and my Mother and Father decided that I "missed my calling" to be a chef due to the fine meal I had prepared. It was a really nice compliment that kind of bothered me because of this very reason. I don't like to be labeled as one thing. I'm an artist, a creative person in general. I feel I can create in any discipline given time to work in it. Could I be a chef? There's no doubt in my mind that I could. It's all generally the same thing when you understand creativity, the only difference is the skill set for each discipline that honestly can be learned by anyone. After that it's in the hands of your imagination. My point here is don't label yourself and stick too closely by it because it cages you into your single discipline. Sometimes to the point that you won't even try anything else for fear of not being as good as you are at that one thing you do really well. This could have the potential to cook up some serious creative blocks.

Don't forget to fail
The way I see it there are two types of people in this world. Those who fail continually at things and ultimately grow as a result, and those who fail at nothing and never learn anything new. You have to fail or at least have the courage to try something that will potentially cause failure in order for you to make progress. The people that make those speed paintings on stage with the spinning canvas, you know the ones, where you don't realize it's an eagle until the end when they turn it around, are displaying performing skills not artistic creativity. It's quite impressive what they do but is that really it? When's the last time they went onto that stage without rehearsing what they were going paint 100 times? When will they actually risk failure in light of creating something special? In general we're all afraid of change, afraid of failure, afraid of the unknown. I have a quote in my head that often comes to light in my life and will hopefully remain with me for the rest of it. I don't know who said it but at this point it really doesn't matter. It goes a little something like this, "As soon as an artist knows exactly what they're doing they're lost". That to me sums it up. Don't be a cliche of continual success. Embrace change, embrace failure, try something new. Draw a stick figure 1000 times until it starts to move. Write a song based on a specific topic 100 different ways until it finally works. Design a new line of clothing that everyone hates and then burn it, pick the pieces out of the ashes and build a new line based on the fragments. I can tell you from experience that when I paint, nothing good usually happens until I ruin or paint it over at least one time. Until that point I'm too controlling, too egotistical in my abilities to allow myself to make a mistake. Embrace failure. Within that you'll truly find the seeds of creation.

Don't underestimate yourself
If I gave you 20 words and 1 hours time do you think you could come up with a poem? If I approached the painting that you've worked 40 hours on, putting in all sorts of pretty details, and splashed paint all over it do you think you could create something new from it? If I burned down your house could you create a home from the wreckage? The answer is simply yes, of course you could. We're human and we're dealing with adversity every day of our lives. We have to think quick on our feet constantly just to survive each day. We are amazing, seriously. We're so used to the gift wrapping we've put on our world that we forget we live in a very unstable and dangerous environment that requires our ability to problem solve continually in order to survive. It's good that we have our routines and our schedules and our walls to protect us but creativity in it's highest form doesn't work that way. It's organic and wild, and unruly. It requires that we figure it out sometimes, like a puzzle, and we're all smart enough to do that especially when we've trained at our craft for some time. So, if your in a rut, throw caution to the wind and destroy your perfect notions of the perfect piece of art or sculpture or music and rebuild it anew. I promise that your smart enough to make something beautiful with it.

Don't work too hard
I'm the first one to get my hands dirty and put in a full days work. It's good to work hard and success comes as a direct result of the effort we put into things. Yet, when you've played a song on the guitar 100 times in one day or worked on a painting for 40 hours in a week sometimes more work will not necessarily add any more benefit to your cause. It helps to just put it down and walk away sometimes. I've noticed that I can come back to a song I'm learning on the guitar after a week of not playing and it instantly makes sense to me in a way that it couldn't just 7 days ago. It's good to focus on something intently for a good amount of time but it's also good to let it go and allow your body and mind to absorb it.

There was a period of time when I was traveling back and forth to the city on the subway a lot. I generally always carry a sketchbook with me so that I can make productive use of idle time by getting in a little drawing. I was drawing faces and studying the differences in facial structure of people. I noticed that the faces I drew would sometimes look similar but in looking around no one looked similar at all. I decided to stop carrying the sketchbook with me for a couple of months. Within that period I would just look at people and imagine I had to draw them. I would look at two people standing next to one another and think, what is it about these two people that makes them look different. I looked and looked and studied and thought a great deal about it. After months of visual research I brought the sketchbook with me again and my ability to capture the individuality of each person had changed quite drastically for the better. In this case I had to stop drawing to learn how to draw better. I worked less and gained more.

There's great strength in not working too hard on one individual thing. The mind, body and spirit need time to let things sink in, to form new pathways of understanding. You'll notice from my story above that I generally never stop creating, I just shift to another type of creativity. I call this the Multiple Avenue approach to creativity. If I get tired of painting I play the guitar. If I'm burnt out on designing things for my website I write in a journal. Give yourself options to create so your not working too hard on one area. This is really powerful because by studying different areas of creativity you begin to make connections. What stumped you in one area will make sense in another. Understanding how to play rhythm guitar opened up avenues of thought when it came to drawing. It's actually a productive way to trick your brain into not working too hard on one thing yet benefiting immensely from continual creative work. If your feeling blocked it could be because your working too hard at one thing.

Don't forget to have fun
Life is too short to be so damn serious. This coming from a guy who's been a little too serious on many occasion himself. So I rate to say that now because I learned through the experience of being very serious at one time that it's of no benefit to anyone. I was painting a canvas one time early in my art career about mother earth. I did a photo shoot of a girl who I wanted as the reference for the painting. I had it all figured out in my head how this thing was going to look. I set out one day on a 4 foot x 8 foot canvas in my garage in California, where I was living at the time. It was coming along pretty well for the first few hours but then it started to go badly, so badly that it no longer looked like what I was going for and it really bothered me. I had ruined the image. All that work, the photo shoot, the preparation, my time, it was all wasted. I started to feel really hot to the point of sweating. I took a few minutes in dismay to step back and think about what I could do to fix it. It was quickly obvious that my little plan was going nowhere fast. I thought to myself, this is no fun and if this is how making art is going to be I don't want to do it anymore. I figured I had nothing to lose so I grabbed a bottle of liquid airbrush paint, took a step back, cranked up the radio in my garage and started splashing paint with reckless abandon. I had a lot of fun that day and wound up painting one of the most pivotal paintings in my early career. It was that very day that I realized you have to enjoy it or you shouldn't do it. We should all make art or create for our own expression, knowledge, and enjoyment. Something usually comes out of that freedom and exploration that's worth sharing. Don't be blocked, just have fun. Forget about the fact that anyone will ever see what you make. Make it as if no one will ever see it and you'll probably wind up with something you want to show everyone. As proof that I didn't just make that story up for this article I'm posting the image of the painting below. It's called "Frustration" and if you look closely at the center of the painting you can see the original image of the girl's three quarter profile way in the background.

Final Note
I hope that the words I've shared here have helped you to see that there's no reason to be blocked creatively. I know that sometimes there are deeper issues that need to be dealt with on a more personal level before we can move forward into our true creative selves. I went through that as well in the very beginning. I would say if you can't move forward at all and are not creating anything you might want to check out the following book. It was instrumental in helping me to really pursue my life as an artist and it's a very powerful 12 week workshop on eliminating creative blocks. "The Artist's Way" is a very influential book.

The name of the book is linked to a page on the Amazon.com website if your interested in checking it out. Please know that if you happen to purchase the book through that link or the link below I will get a rather nominal affiliate payment from it. I'm not in any way trying to sell you that book but I do highly recommend it. I will tell you that it's a 12 week program that's pretty intense. I did this book 5 times. Once by myself, once with my friend Noah, and 3 times in a group we put together to share the gifts that we'd been given through this book. It changed our lives so much that we had to share it with others.

I wish you boundless creativity my friends. May you find your creative way and have fun doing it. Remember it's not the end result that we're after it's the growth throughout the process where we gain the most. Please chime in below if you have any comments, questions, or insights.

Here's what the cover of the book looks like if you want to hunt it down in a bookstore…….Now go forth, create, share, inspire…..