The Creative Blogging Conundrum

Last year I had a creative inspiration which I screwed-up. I smeared white spackle paste all over a ceiling semi-painted blue. I achieved the texture I had hoped for, but when my project was complete it didn’t appear as cloud-like as I hoped. I don’t consider it a horrific failure. Heck, as long as I keep calling it art, I don’t have to listen to everyone else who knows it looks pretty bad!

Sometimes when I force myself to blog, it ends up looking like my blotchy ceiling. Putting words together is like art, just a different brand of creativity. But when I have to blog about facts, which I usually do on the Average Advocate, I feel like I produce mediocre results. My useful blog posts are boring to me because they lack passion, even if I am passionate about the cause they support.

Although humanity appreciates quality and passion, which are hopefully the result of creativity, the first goal of people is usually just to get what they are looking for (which usually isn’t art). As a blogger, providing service usually looks like developing out how-to’s, generating ideas, providing solutions, giving updates on specific interests, or being really really funny. Occasionally we listen to wisdom, but there are a million fountains of wisdom in the introspective blog world. 

As is oft quoted by my husband about blogging:

“Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few”

All to say, creating a blog post doesn’t always feel like creative expression, let alone worthwhile expression. Instead of being useful, I’d prefer to be doing real art, where my soul ebbs out in creative and sometimes even skilled expression.

I’d rather:

Doodle on my napkin.

Play with some acrylic paints.

Twirl with my daughter in princess dresses.

Sing a phrase, scratch out the ink, replace it with new lyrics.

Move my picture frames, place them by shape and color in endless combinations.

Sprinkle seeds in different patterns, wait through summer to see if the colorful flowers will blend nicely with the bulbs.

Have a techno dance party in the basement with our synthesizer.

Snap pictures from different angles of the sunset.

Or just blog with artistic passion.

Art and Advocacy’s Intersection

Sometimes I find my passion as an advocate can express itself in a worthwhile way with my creativity.

For example, last year some girls and I made a wonderfully colorful string of paper cranes. Someone somewhere donated $2 for every crane we made to rebuilding Japan after their horrible earthquake. One afternoon of creativity was worth $100 in funding. And, our cranes are now hanging in a sculpture inside of one of Tokyo’s most traveled subway stations.

Or, here is another thing I could have been part of for World Vision’s Hunger Free campaign. A large amount of artwork was created, uploaded, and put into a book. Copies of these books of art were given to the world leaders who make decisions about money and policy at the G-8 Summit a few weeks back. This week these books are being given to leaders at the global G-20 Summit. You can download the Hunger Free art here.

Although you can still add your Facebook photo to this project, keep up with World Vision Act:s if you are creative. There are usually multiple different artistic projects going on for activist for justice and ending poverty.

For example, here is another opportunity.  MiiR products fund clean water development and are having designs submitted for a new water-bottle skin to be sold in their store. The design needs to be 2480 x 2020px and uploaded by July 8. For more information, go to the directions here.

2015 is another online social movement, begging for your art to be uploaded on their website. They use art to change perceptions in the Arab world about the need to alleviate poverty. Check it out!

Then there is always the ‘sale your art and give proceeds” away idea. Rock stars do this along with incredible authors. But with cool things like Etsy, Ebay, and Craig’s List, this has never been easier for the average person.

Anyone have any cool stories about how they did this?

For years I’ve tried to figure out how to encourage creative people to use their blossoming talents to make a difference around the world. I even hoped to start an online guild to help us collaborate.  It seems that by now, there would have to be something like this already. Does anyone know of one?

I truly believe that we can make “beauty from ashes” by using our creativity to stand up for the poor and oppressed.  I’m just not sure of how, yet. I do promise to keep you posted when I learn of organizations and ideas of how to use our art for good.

Here is a creative sketch I did earlier this year for an Act:s campaign