The creative secret sauce my crafty mother didn't know to teach me

My mother is an avid maker of things. 

In my very early years, her obsession was knitting.  Plastic Sainsbury’s bags jammed with unruly tangled rainbows of wool. Giant, numbered, grey needles poking through the plastic, no doubt trying to escape the suffocating and wild interior. 

She was a meticulous cook, squirrelling scraps of paper with favourite recipes and stained heirloom hardcover recipe books, handed down a generation. Sealed with the promise of delicious labour and soul warming aromas.

She studied counted cross-stitch for years. Some of her most elaborate creations literally taking years to master and complete. Tiny needles with micro silky threads woven into blank linen, in precise and methodical counted crosses to create intricate images. Like paintings, using woven satin thread and tiny sparkling beads.

By the time she was in her 60s, her passion for plants and garden labour was a stunning spectacle of vibrant colour, texture and expert skill. Weeding, watering and endless tinkering in the dirt, a source of great natural energy and satisfaction. Seasonal patterns of death and rebirth, a rhythmic reminder of suffering through hard work in the promise of rewarding and surprising splendour at a future time.

Her hunger for creative meditation, a constant throughout her life. Providing relief, distraction and a safe place to nurture and refuel her soul. Not that she would call these creative pursuits meditation or spend any time at all contemplating the purpose and benefit of these endeavours. To her, this creative practice is just part of who she is, part of life. A delicious and indulgent secret to endless busyness and tangible purpose, aka a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Her creative legacy is something that has been passed down to me, for sure. The carefully hand-crocheted blankets adorning my home or unique and quirky hand-knitted dolls on the shelf in my daughter's room, all made by her hand, constant reminders of this dedication to making and her personal preference and priority for creative hobbies. 

However, when I was growing up, I wouldn’t say that a love for creativity and making were valued as important attributes or expansive passions. They just were. Almost like an extension of your already flawed personality, overspilling and intertwining with the world, clumsily and pointlessly. 

Making creativity a career or life pursuit was considered risky at best and, at worst, a waste of time. Especially when you could be doing something more productive, that had a more secure chance of dollar signs at the end.

One thing that continues to surprise me about my mother’s love and adoration for creative pastimes is her lack of confidence and curiosity around creative risk. Whilst she will happily sit for hours immersed in detailed and intricate work, she limits herself strictly to the rules in the pattern or recipe created by someone else. Undoing or redoing anything that deviated even slightly. Even if it would likely go unnoticed in the big picture.

“I’ve gone wrong again”, she would declare, peering out from above her reading glasses. Her body buried deep in the sofa, swamped in craft materials. A daylight lamp with a magnifier lens strategically placed over her lap spilling bright white light over her creation. Frustration and stress always boil under the surface when her skills or timing don’t match the task at hand. Only ever truly satisfied when she can replicate the instructions as if she had written them herself.

In contrast, my own creative journey has led me to push hard against creative risk-taking. Exploring and experimenting with only self-imposed rules barriers to higher ground and superior creative expression.

I often abandon rules, recipes and patterns in my creative pursuits as I tune into inspiration and my creative curiosity. For me, this deeper creative exploration is the secret sauce, a path to greater well-being and self-connection. But I will be forever grateful for those first baby seeds planted by my mother, a testament to her creative commitment inadvertently supporting her well-being and higher self.

Take care, Sam x

P.S. Are you playing it safe when it comes to your creativity or are you a creative risk taker? Let me know send. me a DM on Instagram or email me at [email protected]

Sam Horton is a professional artist, passionate about the links between art, creativity and well-being.

Learn more about Holistic art practices for well-being

Sam's Art Studio and Studio Shop are based in Australia on the Sunshine Coast.

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