Because, Creativity.

"Joy is reason enough to do anything" - Beth Kempton, Kokoro

Playing to win

I watch my son play. Whatever the game, his enjoyment is inextricably linked to winning. The outcome is the point.

Failure results in anger and discouragement. I tell him that if he’s not enjoying the game, that if its making him so cross, then perhaps it’s time to stop or play something different. This never goes down well. I tell him that the point is to have fun. He doesn’t agree.

To him, my words are a grown-up’s empty platitudes. designed to placate. A consolation. He can’t yet appreciate the joy in just having a good game, win or lose.

I remember how it feels. I remember that once-up-a-time, being the best mattered to me too.

From early on in junior school, throughout secondary school and into my late teens, I played the clarinet.

My dad bought my first instrument from a junk shop for £80. From the moment I picked it up and coaxed my first tentative notes from it, I wanted to be the best clarinet player in the world.

I imagined myself a young virtuoso, playing Mozart at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Winning Young Musician of the Year. First clarinet in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

And I was good. I picked it up quickly and I could feel the music resonating in my soul.

In high school, my parents bought a second hand professional clarinet for me. A Boosey & Hawkes 926 Imperial. I loved it. Made from ebony with silver plated keys. The joint rings unadorned and beautiful in their simplicity. The barrel slightly more rounded than other models. It’s tone rich and sonorous.

The better I got, the better I wanted to be. I toiled for mastery. Not only did I want to play beautiful pieces, I wanted to play more and more difficult pieces. I wanted people to be astonished by my technical brilliance and my incredible skill.

After I left school, I continued to play for a while. But as the years passed, life moved inexorably onward, my free time dwindled, opportunities to play diminished and there seemed no reason to play.

In the end, the dedication needed was beyond me. The dream was just a dream and the sacrifices that would have been required were more than I was able or willing to make.

I would never be the best. My childhood dreams dissipated and my clarinet rested silent in its case.

Eventually, I admitted to myself I would likely never play again, pragmatism won out over nostalgia and with regret, I sold my beautiful clarinet.

But while the childish dream of becoming the best clarinetist in the world was left behind, my love of music and art, inspiration and creativity remained.

It was rooted deep in my soul, from a life surrounded by creativity.

Creativity in the blood

My granddad was a brilliant photographer and had a dark room in his shed in the back garden. He collected old cameras and took amazing photographs that he developed himself and would often turn into slides. He had a carousel slide projector and we would sit enthralled as each slide clicked and clunked into view on the woodchip wallpaper of the living room wall.

As I grew up, Dad took up woodcarving and furniture making as a hobby after he became ill and was unable to work. He made the walnut clock case for the grandfather clock that still stands in Mum’s living room. He made exquisitely crafted rocking horses, solid wood furniture, gorgeously carved clocks and boxes, ornaments and trinkets.

Mum has always been creative too. knitting jumpers, teddies and dolls and Beatrix Potter characters. Sewing patchwork quilts and mice in period costumes and embroidering cushion covers. Planting and nurturing her garden and decorating her life with beauty and creativity.

My sister, my nieces, my aunties all create beautiful things. Fibre art, clay crafts, woodwork, watercolours, knitting, crocheting.

And throughout my life, I have done the same.

I have made things with clay, messed about with papier mache, made models from matchsticks, knitted and crocheted, sewed things, embroidered things. I’ve tried my hand a felting, I’ve created hand made cards, decoupaged boxes and painted silk scarfs.

A veritable kaleidoscope of creativity.

But why?

Not to win. Not to be the best.

But because, as

Beth Kempton

wrote in her book, Kokoro, “joy alone is reason enough to do anything.”

Playing for joy

As I wrote my last letter, The Music of March, I experienced a fresh pang of regret over selling my clarinet. I wished that I could play again. Not to be a great musician or play first clarinet in an orchestra. Just for me. Just to experience that indescribable feeling of the music resonating in my soul.

And so, for joy alone, I bought myself a new clarinet. Well, not exactly new. A Boosey & Hawkes 926 Imperial clarinet. Made in 1967. And although the silver plate is worn in places and the keys click a little, to me, it is perfect.

An invitation

I invite you to join me in a celebration of creativity of all kinds.

Lets make things from clay. Lets knit and crochet and play around with felting. Lets try out lino printing and silk painting. Lets draw and paint and play music.

For joy alone.

Just because, creativity.

Bye for now,

P.S. If you have a creative passion and you would like to share about it here on While I Was Drawing, leave a comment, reply to this email or send me a direct message on Substack. I’d love to hear from you.

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