Creativity isn't just for kids & how getting paid kills the fun, sometimes.

An honest chat about running art classes for adults and my relationship with money.

Last week I held the first creative workshop for adults at our new community home education space. As adults we don't often get the chance to be playful. We don't have time to do something just because it's fun. We feel we are not creative. The workshop, which I called ART PLAY, was time to explore our creativity, put pen to paper and make art, just because it's enjoyable. To paint and draw without judgement or thought of the outcome. To be experimental, playful and engage with our creative side. We splashed inks, mixed colours and created beautiful patchwork paintings filled with rainbows.

Having said all that, it wasn’t only about the art. ART PLAY was also about building community, making connections and forging friendships. The making of art together created a space for us to talk, share feelings and deepen our connection with others.

Scrape paintings

The art activities we embarked on were super simple, in fact they are activities I regularly do with children. My focus for the workshop wasn’t to teach anyone art techniques, it was just about being playful and experimenting. We created colour ‘automatic drawing’ paintings loosely inspired by Paul Klee, we played with inks and made colourful scrape paintings.

Adults ART PLAY

I was really looking forward to spending the evening with friends and meeting new people, however at the end of the workshop I realised that, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t enjoy the experience very much. The art was fun, the people were awesome, it was getting paid to host the workshop that took away the joy. The transaction of receiving money made something I love, sharing creativity, into a job or a chore. I felt an obligation to provide a good service to those who had paid to be there. Although getting paid is beneficial for me, it wasn’t enough of a benefit for me to not enjoy the experience myself. It made me feel like I was outside or separate from the community I was trying to help build. I was there to facilitate rather than take part.

I am a huge advocate for creative people being compensated for their work. However in this case, I don’t want to be paid. I want to be able to offer my skills freely and participate in the community I am aiding to build.

In this situation, my need for money in order to survive in the world we live in decreased my connection with others. In short, capitalism killed the fun!

In the future I still want to help facilitate art activities for adults but I think a system of bartering or exchange of skills is more aligned with how I want to engage in my community. I am imagining an evening where we all come together and offer something to the group. Maybe some participants bring food to share, others bring drinks, I bring creative activities and others contribute by keeping our community space tidy or fixing some broken furniture or being a supportive friend. We all have skills to offer and each is important to creating the kind of community I want to be part of.