Creativity vs Artistry: A Love Story

Hey #Creative peeple! ✏️🎨🎤🎭🎸📸🪚🩰🎞️💥🖍️🌈💡

This post blurs all the things. Here we go…

You can be creative and not artistic. You can be artistic and have no shred of creativity. These two things, though sometimes intricately related, are not necessarily dependent on each other and are two completely different things.

Can’t draw, write, design or paint? Don’t compose music, play an instrument, craft, or carve soapstone? You must not be creative at all! That's what some people may think and that's because they confuse creativity with artistry. And though having an artistic skill may make you a more powerful creative, it doesn’t make you any less of a problem solver.

But let’s define creativity. Dictionary.com gives the best definition IMO.

“Transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns…”. I love that. It's telling you to break tings. This is what brings about new ideas. Not a beautifully rendered bowl of oranges. I am not trying to take away from artistic folk. I am one of them. What I’m trying to say is that artistry is more craft, and creativity, which can enhance the eff out of that craft, is where the innovative methods and originality help make a craft unique.

If you’re a great problem-solver and also a great writer, you’ll be able to communicate your solutions so much better than an equivalent creative who is less artistically inclined to compose. The Advertising and Comms worlds are filled with these peeps. It still doesn’t take away from your ability to be creative. Hire a writer to get your ideas across. Use AI. Draw pictures. Mime that shit.

Here’s a great example of pure creativity. A problem that was beautifully solved and because of artistry (craft) the result was also physically beautiful.

This is an image of an IRL animal-crossing. There are many of them throughout the world. They solved a huge problem that seems so simple now, but before this idea, animals risked their lives at highway crossings. And because the contractors were amazing at their craft (artistry) the result was very pretty and added a point of interest to an otherwise ho-hum highway.

Now, to be fair, here’s a great example of artistry (definition here). Rice carving requires incredible craft and technique. It's a pure form of art.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is creativity involved here—coming up with the notion to carve rice, figuring out the methods and possibly even inventing tools to pursue the craft. But those were creative endeavors. The artistry is the technique required to carve a piece of rice.

Expression, craft and artistry can be a huge part of creativity because if you can’t communicate your solutions well, they may never come to life. This is why writing is so important. But don’t be discouraged about pursuing creativity even if you feel like you may have weak expression skills. Take a class. Read. And of course, write. But never stop being Creative because if you remember—Creativity is an Operating System.

I'd love your thoughts and comments!