How to get started or keep going if you, your art, and creative expression, are “different.”

It’s easy(er) to stay inspired and persevere on our creative paths when we see and are surrounded by models of success to follow. Inspirational stories of triumph over adversity to read when we’re feeling down about the possibility of success of our own art.

But how do we inspire a never give-up ethos when our creativity is a tad bit more unconventional and unGooglable?

i am an AFAB female who performs drag. And although now my art has evolved beyond gender identifiers and into the realm of pure art performance as a drag artist and i’ve added writing, tarot, teaching, astrology, and coaching into the mix…it’s still different.

And any way you look at it, my art is unconventional to say the least and i’m still trying to find its home in the drag world (where it was birthed) much less a place in mainstream art consciousness.

So how do we stay inspired to continue doing and making our art as unconventional creatives? How do we make what we do known to the world? How do we find our gente and stages to share our art on?

We build it. All good creatives do. If there is no stage, gallery, platform that already exists to show off our work, we create our own.

We collaborate with artists and creatives whose art and creativity are already accepted as such. For me, that meant partnering with a rising star drag queen to do a monthly charity (read free) gig that helped sharpen and hone my own drag skills. Now it’s discounted tarot and astrology readings to help me continue to hone and sharpen my intuitive skills on others.

We strategically offer our art, creativity, and services pro bono to those people, places, and things to whom the exposure and the experience are of higher value than any monetary gain.

We have to remind ourselves of the why we do what we do. Constantly. For me, NOT doing drag, writing, or teaching and expressing this side of myself would feel 10 times worse than performing to an audience of only one.

We prepare ourselves and our craft as if our platform was already in existence. We do whatever we need to do to make sure that when the time comes (and it will) that we and our art are ready.

How do we do that?!?

We take in our surroundings–the shows on our television, the music in our Spotify library, the house that we live in, the buildings and the streets we walk in and on –  and remember that life as we know and experience it now, was once just shattered fragments of an idea in someone else’s consciousness. That brush that you paint with didn’t exist until someone wanted another brushstroke option bad enough to create it. This computer i’m typing on was just a microchip in someone’s Central Processing Unit until the desire to find another form of communication was strong enough to cause them to act. And six years ago, there wasn’t GAG magazine that celebrates the diversity of drag until i got serious about wanting my voice and art to be heard.

This podcast wouldn’t exist either! Nor my book, How To Be A Drag Queen.

And five years from today there won’t be the beauty and art that only YOU can create unless you make the commitment to yourself to finish, to stay inspired, to forge new ways instead of follow, to never give up until the unconventional art that you envision finds its home in this world.

Here’s to forging your own creative throne.

In 🖤💡✊🏾

contigo,

xo-b

Show Notes

Interested in a discounted tarot or Skyy reading (my signature blend of astrology and tarot to help you get a clearer sense of who you are, what you were born to do/be, and how to share that with the world)?

Email me at brandi@brandiamaraskyy.com with the subject line READING DISCOUNT to find out more!

Don’t forget to subscribe to One Minute Sparks For Artists!

Click on your favorite listening channel below to subscribe!