Revealing Deeper Meanings In Your Art | Sam Horton

FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep126 

In this episode of Soul-led Creative Women, I'm exploring what if the things we're creatively drawn to, again and again, aren't random at all? What if our recurring colours, subjects and themes are actually information, quietly revealing who our soul is inviting us to become?

Three reasons to listen: 

• You'll learn why the things you keep returning to in your art (a colour, a subject, a symbol) might be far more meaningful than personality or habit
• You'll hear a simple way of thinking about creative attraction as a language your inner knowing uses when words aren't yet ready
• You'll be invited to look back at your own creative history and notice the trail you've been leaving for yourself, without realising it

Key takeaways:

• Recurring creative pulls, a colour, a subject, a theme, are often a form of information about what we need to embrace or release
• Creativity often knows what we need before our conscious mind catches up, which is why certain images or ideas can feel like they're choosing us rather than the other way round
• Recurrence is data. When something shows up once, it might be curiosity, but when it keeps returning across months or years, it's usually pointing at something deeper
• Looking back at what you were creatively drawn to one, three or five years ago can reveal the trail of who you've been becoming all along

Reflection question: Where in your creative life is something quietly, persistently calling you, and what version of yourself might it be revealing?

FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep126
 

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Transcript

 Ep 126 -Revelaing Deeper Meanings In Your Art

[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered why you keep returning to the same color, the same subject, the same shape or idea in your art over and over without really choosing to? Not because it's trendy or because, it makes sense, but because something in you keeps reaching for it quietly, insistently, you know, like a little kid tugging on your sleeve.

 Maybe it's a shade of blue that keeps finding its way into everything you make. Maybe it's like water or women or certain, you know, shapes or symbols, a part of your art or process that kind of chose you and won't let go. So the question I want to explore with, you today is: what if our creative preferences aren't just random or personality driven?

What if they're information? What if the things we're drawn to again and again are trying to tell us something about who we're [00:01:00] becoming or what we need to embrace or release as we evolve?

So the creative process itself doesn't want our words or our explanations, right? And we tend to dismiss things we return to in our art, uh, you know, or shrug them off. saying things like, "I just like blue," or, "I'm just drawn to portraits." "I don't know why I have such a calling to explore water," or the ocean.

Or maybe we do have an idea about what it might mean, but don't fully claim it, out of fear for being either misunderstood or feeling a bit vulnerable, or maybe even a little bit silly, right? But what if that blue color is tied to an emotion that you want more of in your life? Or maybe on the flip side, an emotion that you want to release, right?

And what if those portraits are about honoring your feminine energy and your intuition more intentionally in your life? [00:02:00] What if the underwater theme is because you're processing a period of your life that felt like you were slowly drowning, right? Fighting to keep your head above the water. I invite you to have a think about what you currently feel drawn to in your art, and explore the deeper meaning beneath that creative energy.

You know, thinking about how the creative process might be trying to support you, trying to heal you, trying to help you feel held. And alternatively, you know, how might the creative process be trying to move you forward, to help you release what no longer serves you, and to claim the desires burning in your heart?

When was the last time something caught you off guard in your art? You know, not the ideas that you planned, but the ones that arrived uninvited. A color you couldn't stop reaching for, an image you kept circling back to because, one time wasn't enough, a [00:03:00] story that wouldn't leave you alone until you told it, you know, on the canvas.

I would argue that those creative urges aren't random, but rather a reflection of your inner knowing, you know, a real conversation with your soul, one that doesn't need words, an embodied language of color, texture, and movement. 

Because some things take time, right? To be said or understood in words, and maybe some things never can be. They have to be painted or shaped or smudged with your hands or move through your body before you can understand what you're feeling or what you want to say or do, next, right? 

 and maybe have a think of it like this. You know? Imagine your creativity as a friend, you know, who knows you better than you know yourself, but who doesn't sort of speak your [00:04:00] normal language fluently. ... She can't sit you down and explain it directly, so instead she just leaves you little clues.

A color that keeps showing up, a theme that won't let go, a texture you can't stop exploring. she's trying to tell you something, and the only way she knows how is to keep pointing gently at the same thing until you finally stop, and look, and pay attention, and explore it over and over until it feels done and complete

Our creativity often knows what we need before our conscious mind catches up, right? This is one of the most tender things about the creative process, I think. if you let yourself go there, if you let yourself feel it, it's the subject you can't stop painting. 

It might be circling something you haven't said out loud yet. maybe not even to yourself, right? It's the color palette you gravitate towards that might be echoing a season of your life you're moving through or grieving your way out [00:05:00] of. And I was thinking of something interesting that we could explore as an example, and I thought of, uh, Van Gogh's empty chair painting because it's sort of both slightly quirky, and it's actually quite an emotionally engaging idea to explore, right?

But just imagine it's a woman who spent a year painting these empty chairs in different ways, in different compositions. At first, she doesn't know why, but there they are, chair after chair. Then one day she stands back and realizes she's been painting about loss, right? Maybe it's loss of a dear friend, or maybe it's a, it's loss of a version of herself.

The empty chair symbolizing a missing piece, a vacant space, absence, but also an invitation, right? A thread of life, presence, emotional longing. And the meaning reveals itself to her in these tiny whispers along the way as she, you know, continues to explore these empty chairs. And her [00:06:00] art is helping her express, you know, what is living in her heart long before maybe she's ready to admit it to herself or ready to say it out loud, 

already to kind of acknowledge, you know, the pain 

 or start the process of healing, right?

 And I don't think looking at your art in this way is sort of, you know, clutching at straws or mystical thinking for its own sake. I think by paying attention to patterns, interesting details, and our creative intuition, we have, like, some really valuable, information.

And maybe sometimes we choose things for fun, curiosity or, you know, pure playfulness. But then maybe other times, particularly if ideas are recurring, 

 maybe there's a real depth and, you know, more considered serious layers to consider in our art

Of course, some people might prefer to leave [00:07:00] this deeper meaning unexplored and simply to just be with it in the creative process, and that's totally fine. But there are others I'm sure who find it helpful to continue this conversation with their art In a deeper, more layered, and almost therapeutic way long after the painting is finished.

And I know it can feel vulnerable to sit with your creativity in this way. There's like a kind of an exposure in realizing that your art has been revealing parts of you this whole time. But honestly, no one really knows the depth of what's going on in your art unless you show them or you tell them, right?

And that's why art is such a safe place to have these really honest conversations with the deepest parts of ourselves, saying the quiet thing before you're ready to say it out loud. And there's a real relief in creating this way as well because it shifts energy naturally, [00:08:00] and it facilitates, you know, release, healing, and even a new kind of confidence which comes from knowing yourself more deeply and allowing yourself to explore who you're becoming on the canvas as well, as you continue evolving and growing, in your art So here's the invitation I wanna leave you with.

 What if you more intentionally ask yourself, "What is my art revealing about my life experiences and the woman my soul is inviting me to become?" Your creative preferences might not be like decoration on top of who you already are, just personality traits. They might be the earliest sketches of a new version of yourself that you haven't fully met yet, drawn in colors and themes and recurring obsessions long before you have the words to meet her out loud.

Think about who you were [00:09:00] creatively, you know, one, three, five years ago, and what you were drawn to then, and notice what's changed. That shift wasn't random either. It was you becoming the next version of yourself, evolving in real time, leaving a trail for yourself almost to follow if you ever need to find a way back to how it all started, you know, and, and how far you've come.

 And you don't have to fully understand the messages straight away. I think this is more about just noticing that there is one there somewhere and trusting that your creativity is wiser than you may give it credit, even when you're not paying attention, right?

 I hope this episode has stirred up some creative curiosity within you.

Thank you so much for listening. Take care