“I’m not creative.”
This is something I hear often when people find out I’m an artist.
Usually, what they mean is: I can’t draw.
I get it. Not everyone is an artist, but please stop saying you are not creative.
Creativity is much bigger than drawing or making any type of art.
Creativity is the ability to make something from nothing.
An idea, a meal, a solution, a home, a different way of seeing.
That is magic.
Children understand this naturally. They make, imagine, invent, and play without worrying if what they create is “good enough.”
Somewhere along the way, many adults lose that freedom.
Women create in invisible ways
Women especially create all the time, often without calling it creativity.
We create care, connection, routines, comfort, beauty, celebrations, possibilities, and ways to keep life moving.
As we come to the end of Women’s History Month, I want to honor a woman who transformed how we think about art: Mierle Laderman Ukeles.
In 1969, after becoming a mother, Ukeles went through an identity crisis.
She loved her child and changing diapers, but thought her head was going to blow up because she didn’t have the freedom to create art.
She realized that her artistic heroes did not have to make the same sacrifices she did as a mother. As she later put it, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp, and Mark Rothko “didn’t change diapers.”
Marcel Duchamp influenced her deeply. He spoke about the power of naming and renaming things, and that helped her see that she could name her own reality differently.
A Different Kind of Artistic Freedom
So, she wrote Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!
She challenged the idea that only certain kinds of work count as meaningful or valuable. She named maintenance work—cleaning, caring, preserving, supporting life—as art.
That was a radical act, an act of freedom.
As she said, “If I have the freedom to name… I choose maintenance, and I call it art.”
Ukeles helped bring attention to the labor that keeps homes, families, and cities going. She expanded the conversation around what art could be and who gets to define it.
To me, this is creativity in action.
She did not escape her reality. She transformed it.
I want to leave you with this:
When women stop creating, we lose more than art. We lose a way to process life, reclaim identity, and imagine who we can still become.
So if you have ever said, “I’m not creative,” I invite you to reconsider.
Maybe creativity has been in your life all along,
but… maybe it just hasn’t been called art yet.
About Claudia
I’m Claudia, a portrait artist passionate about bringing joy and inspiration through creative expression. I facilitate painting events, coloring workshops, and drawing lessons designed to help you reconnect with yourself, enjoy the creative process, and rediscover the pleasure of making art.
If you’ve been wanting to reconnect with your creativity, you can join my drawing community through the Stan Store link: https://stan.store/marulandaart or email me directly at claudia@marulandaart.com