Creativity and Art

Semantics often matter.

Do you consider yourself an artist? A creative? A photographer? An office worker? An entrepreneur? Maybe you’re an accountant and writer. But do you call yourself an accountant who writes a bit, or an author who works in an accountancy firm?

‘Creative’ is a particularly difficult and misused term. It seems like ‘artist’ feels a step too far for many people who make stuff. I’m thinking particularly of photographers and videographers and ‘content creators’ (which is easily my least favorite term of all of them). So we call ourselves ‘creatives’, because it’s a little bit safer and harder to define and more modern-sounding.

And doesn’t mean much.

Anyone can be creative in their job and career and business and hobby and relationships and parenting and admin tasks and just about anything. We all have the capacity to create. And, I think, the desire to create. And we do. Maybe we’re more constrained than others, more likely to follow the rules, or at least we think we are. But calling ourselves a creative just because we do something in the arts does an injustice to everyone that is creative, often more so, in non-artistic roles.

I just call myself a photographer. But I’m starting to make videos, so even that gets tricky.