Some people collect stamps. I collect skills.
Not just any skills, but the kind that leave paint under your nails, threads tangled on your desk, or clay dust on your shoes.

I am a chronic creative.

With this public confession, I am admitting to something I have known all my life: I have an unshakable urge to always be making. And not just in one field. I have an insatiable thirst to learn about every other art form under the sun.

Leather crafting. Sashiko stitching. Seal carving. Ceramics. Iconography. Bookbinding.
Some I have explored just for a season. Others, I have pursued with more depth.

Have they been a distraction? Have they slowed down my development as a painter? Perhaps. I used to think that it suggested I wasn’t serious about becoming a competent painter. But I have since realised that the art of collecting the arts has made me apt at seeing, responding, and problem-solving. I have acquired dexterity in my hands and can handle tools with a fluidity and confidence when trying something new, greatly reducing the learning curve.

None of it has been wasted. Each craft—whether I have stayed with it or simply passed through—has left behind transferable skills, new ways of seeing, and an expanded sense of possibility. They have all made me a better artist. And they will continue to shape me as a mixed-media artist, as I keep exploring, experimenting, and doing the work of finding where and how my voice is strongest.

In the end, these other arts are not distractions from my main practice—they are nutrients. Every time I step into a new medium, I bring something back to feed my primary work. And perhaps that is the joy of being a chronic creative: you never know what will cross-pollinate next.

 

What other art forms do you have in your collection, and how have they shaped your work?

 

Pic: This photo is from my printmaking phase. My first piece was a small woodcut of a monstera leaf, handprinted on rice paper. I loved woodcutting the most—it was tactile and organic at the same time. There’s something therapeutic about carving away at wood. If only life’s problems could be chipped away just as easily. LOL.