Some of the most successful creatives I have come across, no matter what the artistic discipline, have been people who don’t walk it alone.
The Lord gives us community, encouragement, fellowship and belonging within our church family, it’s a reflection of how God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in loving community together.
In our creativity we need to remember that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and God is the greatest creator of them all. Therefore I believe that it should not be our desire or aim to be alone, but rather we should look in our creative endeavors to be in community with other creatives.
Sometimes is can be really hard to find creatives who share your interests, I struggled for years feeling very alone, but I think its definitely important to work with what you have got.
How we build community around our creativity can look different for everyone. Some people go to big urban churches which are full of many people who are involved in the arts, and others of us will be living in the countryside with hardly any artistic people around us at all.
I want to encourage you to think about your personal situation, and whether you have creative people around you that you can encourage and also be encouraged by. It is so important to be bouncing ideas and feeding off of each other as creative people!
Here are some questions that I think creative people should ask themselves and consider in regard to community:
Am I being too specific in the people around me that I am trying to relate to creatively?
Just because someone who you know works within a different creative discipline than you doesn’t mean that you can’t have a helpful creative relationship with that person.
For example, I work with an awesome guy called Dan. Dan is an apprentice tattoo artist, which, although I have always loved tattoos and tattoo art, is not my thing at all. However this does not mean that I shouldn’t interact with him when it comes to creativity, because actually it has brought much fruit. Here are some examples:
- For both of us, we both recognize that we need to draw more, and so we are able to encourage each other in that way.
- Dan knows he needs to promote his artwork and business, and because of my background in marketing and web, we are able to collaboratively work on getting him a website, blog, and social networking presence set up.
- We are both able to share ideas and inspirations together and although maybe not 100% related to our own disciplines, these times of sharing can still be hugely inspirational and helpful.
- I now have access to a tattoo artist who I have a personal relationship with and can trust!
Am I missing a treat by ignoring other creatives that the Lord has put around me?
Something I have realized this year is that often there are a lot of creatives around who we can easily miss. Sometimes you have to put a bit of effort in to build relationships. There is nothing wrong with testing the water and meeting up with people just to chat and talk story about what their interests are.
Is there an obvious place where I can be in an already established community relating to my interests?
It might be that, for instance, you are a photographer, and although you want to grow and continually be inspired in your photography, you for some reason don’t bother joining your local photography group. Now for some, something like that might be a pride thing, or a low expectation, but how can you judge something like that if you haven’t tried it.
I also very often here of local meet-ups for graphic designers, tweet-ups for social media experts, jam nights for musicians, etc.
There is a lot of stuff out there, you just need to make sure your eyes are open, and be prepared to try something new.
Should I be starting a creative community in some way?
If this is something that you are considering doing, I think its important to weight it up, be wise, and make sure you have enough time and resources to see it through. Saying that, this is something that needn’t be on a huge scale, this could be something as simple as meeting up with a fellow creative, or something as big as you can dream.
Also things like this can grow organically. For instance, a lot of my favorite visual artists are guys who are part of a collective. Often these started loosely with friends meeting up to paint and collaborate together, and not it has grow to a point where they share a huge studio space, share their commissioned work, and almost always have their art exhibitions together as a group. I believe that there is serious strength in that.
Do I have an online presence?
Some of the richest community that I have experience when it comes to creativity is online. It seems obvious really, being online gives you access to a far larger reach of people and so it is more likely that you are going to find people on your wavelength.
There are various ways to do this well, but from my biased perspective blogging and social media can be some of the strongest tools. Regularly share creative projects that you are working on, and start interacting with like-minded people. I am sure you will be pleased with how it grows if you show it some commitment.
How are you going to make sure that you are not alone as a creative? Do you have any tips for building creative community?
joel smedley says
well this guy is on the money as creative people we need a comunity to thrive also as a church family in acts 2:42 they devoted them selfs to all sort of thing they went into the world i like what this man has wrote because i see how he lives it to
joel
James Brooks says
🙂 thanks Joel
Kevin Boyle says
I really love how James lays out the different ways in which we can interact with other artistic disciplines and that the intention behind the artistic nature comes from the greatest artist/creator possible. It is true I believe that those with a personal relationship with the creator God flourish. Discussion is important and cannot happen alone and the way James demonstrates that the best way for this to happen is through the image of the perfect relationship there is…The Trinity. God is paramount in the creative cycle whether he is the subject or inspiration. Just like love we enjoy the arts because our creator who we are born in his image was the creator first and thus laying that in us. Loved the read. Look forward to the next one.
Big Love
James Brooks says
Thanks for your thoughts Kevin
Wendy says
Great post. I’ve been attempting to grow my online network. I’ve had to tell myself that this too is part of my marketing/business growth because it gets too easy to close myself up in my studio and forget all about the world.
James Brooks says
Very true Wendy. It’s been great hanging out with you on Twitter.
Josh Taylor says
Great post! This post really hit home, this is something that I’ve really been trying to work at the past few months. I really liked when you said “It is so important to be bouncing ideas and feeding off of each other as creative people!” because that statement is so true. I feel like I’ve finally realized the importance of that. Thanks for the post!
James Brooks says
Thanks for being part of the community here! Am I able to catch you on Twitter?
Josh Taylor says
Yeah man, my username is @joshuamtaylor – also my blog’s handle is @submergechurch — definitely hit me up!
James Brooks says
Great – thanks Josh 🙂