What is vastly underrated by artists for its creativity?
The business world.
The creativity required to thrive in the realm of commerce is underestimated by creative types. Yet business, when fully engaged in, requires more than the known capacity of an individual. Just as the successful creation of art does.
You have to reach beyond what you know.
The sculptor David Langley switched gears last year and joined a startup bringing eco-solutions to the world. As he says, “I feel more alive than I ever have.”
An artist’s work is often a go-it-alone endeavor . . .
“Your world is pretty small as an artist,” David says. “You’re only working by yourself.”
“I didn’t realize how much I was starved for working with intellectuals. In business I have a much broader palette of minds to work with.”
“I’m excited to find practical applications for new and out-of-the-box technologies. We’re involved with cutting-edge science that can affect the planet.”
“I see the business as one of my creations.”
Having been involved in business as much as in creative fields over the course of my life, I can testify that you put body and soul into both.
Business and trade are as immersive creatively as any of the arts. If you seek to engage at that level.
Just as there are people rotely doing their jobs, their are artists rotely pumping out art that no longer inspires them.
There is electricity sparking just as much in forging relationships and finding practical solutions that benefit clients as there is in crafting a poem.
The paths are different; seen through a brain scan, the fertile minds molding possibilities probably look similar.
This is all preamble to say this: there is nowhere you can’t engage your creative self in today’s world. Family, sexuality, contribution, friendship, play, spirituality, exercise, shopping (I hear trophy wives heaving a sigh here).
Wherever you are, whatever interests you, you can be as creatively alive as you want to be.