creative voice – ROBERT VAN VALKENBURGH

I am terrified of my creative voice. It frightens me because it sounds a lot like my pain.

I am hesitant to enter that place inside of me because I am afraid of what I will find, I am afraid of what will come out, and I am afraid that I will not be able to leave once I enter.

I dance around this fear and I do good work, but it isn’t my work, not in the truest sense because it is impersonal. What is personal is the pain, the grief, the anger, and the shame, but I am afraid to go there.

I want my art to be uplifting, I want to make a positive impact, and I want to make people happy, but I also need to dig deeper. I need to dive into the pain. I need to unearth the lessons it wants to give me. I need to not be afraid of what I will find because all I will find is the truth.

I am still searching for my creative voice because it exists on the other side of fear and I have not yet gone there. I have not yet become truly vulnerable, and there is no art without vulnerability.

Even this is merely writing around the truth, not diving into it headfirst without hesitation. Even this is a form of hiding. This is me avoiding the real work.

This is not my creative voice. This is something else.

The only way to find your creative voice is to use it. If you want to be a better writer, write more. If you want to be a better painter, paint more. If you want to be a better chef, cook more.

But you can’t stop there. You have to share your work. Put it in the world. Let people interact with it. There is only so much you can do to refine your creative skills in isolation.

Art needs to be seen, heard, and felt. It needs to be experienced.

In order for you to find your creative voice, your voice must be heard by others.

Make your art. Share your art. Put it into the world and see what comes back. Do this over and over again and you will find that you are changed.

You begin to be more like yourself. Your work starts to feel more like your own. You discover that what you have to say is worth saying and that you are the only one uniquely qualified to say what you have to say in the way that only you can say it.

If you want to find your creative voice, you will have to be brave. You will have to risk being ignored, misheard, or misunderstood, and you will have to speak up anyway. Speak up through your art. Say what you have to say loudly and persistently enough that you cannot be ignored.