I found myself in my local art supply shop at the weekend. I usually stick to the top floor, full of beautifully designed gifts, books and cards. But downstairs is what I think of as their ‘cave of wonders’… the fresh canvases. The new paint brushes. The lino blocks waiting to be carved.

I was there with a friend. And I kept finding myself saying, “I used to do that.” “I had one of those.” “I used to love [insert creative pursuit here].”

It left me a little nostalgic for the ‘creative person’ I used to be (and I use those inverted commas very heavily, coming from someone who works in design…).

But it also reminded me of all the times I’ve been into that shop, or one like it, in recent years, and bought something on a whim, thinking “maybe this time I’ll stick with it – maybe this is my new thing.” Before, inevitably, the calligraphy pens end up in the drawer with the air dry clay and the soap making kit…

It seems like only yesterday that I’d spend hours and hours lost in the act of making and creating.

Then somewhere along the way, I put down the pens, pencils and pastels, and forgot to pick them up again. Or, if I did, it was because I felt I should, not because I had a genuine urge to.

We all know that as we grow older, we’re prone to losing that child-like freedom and natural instinct to simply play. And it’s no wonder. In a system that rewards productivity, doing something playful – purely for its own sake – can seem… indulgent.

I’m not writing this to solve it. Maybe just to say it out loud, in case you feel the same.

The comfort of constraints

I spend my days working as a digital designer, creating brands and websites for charities, not-for-profits and purpose brands.

I love this work. It’s challenging. It requires problem solving and creative thinking.

But the actual practice of it is quite restrained – and rightly so. It’s about ergonomics – how something works and feels as much as how it looks. And those design choices can make the difference between whether someone stops and pays attention, or moves on.

This is the kind of work that suits me. It plays into my love of order and structure and deliberateness. Making things clear and practical. No frills or fuss for the sake of it.

Not very ‘creative’, you might say. Or maybe that’s just what I say. And I think that’s the crux of it. In my mind, being creative is so deeply attached to my earlier artistic pursuits, the ones that stemmed from childhood. When you weren’t given a brief. When there wasn’t a client. When it was simply fun.

What I do every day is creative, by definition: “relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something.” So do I just need to recognise that, maybe, creativity simply looks different now to how it did when I was younger?

The fork in the road

I was lucky – creativity was encouraged in my house growing up. My mum, in particular, nurtured my curiosities. The interior design obsession. The upcycling of car boot sale finds. The screen printing era. The wonky line drawings.

Around the age of 10, me and my friend would spend our Saturdays drawing room designs inspired by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, or creating our own magazines and comics. All through school, art was my favourite subject. But by the time I left at 18, I didn’t know what to do with it.

The Art & Design Foundation Diploma was the answer. And it was essentially a year of playing. A year exploring all the disciplines on offer – textiles, photography, fine art, graphic design, illustration.

The problem was, I loved it all. When it came to deciding what the future looked like, I was torn. Fine art, where there’s a sense of freedom and expression? Or graphic design, where you’re confined to a brief?

I realised that, actually, the latter is where I felt most comfortable. Blank-sheet-of-paper-syndrome was ‘a thing’, and I struggled with it. There was something about having a brief, and working within constraints, that I actually thrived in.

That’s not to take anything away from fine art and its virtues. But I knew that for me – particularly as something I could envisage as a career – graphic design was it. Order, structure and deliberateness are arguably the result of finding my way in the world as an adult, and graphic design (digital design in particular) was where that instinct found its form.

And it’s 1000% the best choice I made. I’m 15 years into a career I love – especially the last 10, where I’ve applied those skills to something more purposeful.

But I fear I got so deep in designing to briefs and solving problems that I’ve kind of forgotten how to create just for the fun of it.

The creativity limit

So why did I stop? I’m not sure I have a clean answer.

Part of it is energy. I think I have a creativity limit, and most days it gets used up during the workday, leaving little in the tank once everything else is done.

And part of it goes back to that feeling of indulgence. I’ve been brainwashed by the idea that creation has to serve a purpose: to sell a piece of art, a print, a greeting card. So making something purely for myself, with no outcome and no one to make it for, can start to feel like it isn’t quite worthwhile.

The urge has reared its head now and again in recent years. A life drawing class. Christmas crafting. The occasional line drawing. But I’ll often try something, and then I give up soon after. I couldn’t seem to find something that would stick.

The blank slab

My actual ‘hobby’ these days has become gardening. It’s the one thing that has stuck. And maybe that’s because, true to form, I can justify it: it supports biodiversity, it grows fresh food for me and my partner, it connects me with nature. And sure, I want it to look nice. But strip all that away, and I just love the act of growing.

And here’s the part that makes me smile. My front garden started as a blank sheet of paper – a slab of fake grass – and I turned it into a thriving garden of my own design. The very blank page that used to stump me indoors, it turns out I was happy to fill outdoors.

Just for the hell of it

So maybe, if you’re a bit like me, we need to throw off our old ideas of what creativity is, what it’s for, why we do it. Remove the pressure, remove the fear of getting it wrong, or of not being good enough. Find the thing you like – traditionally ‘creative’ or not – and do it because it brings you some kind of joy.

I think, for me, creativity just looks different at 38 than it did at 8, 18, or even 28. It lives in my work, and in my garden – proof, maybe, that I can still make things for the love of it. I just seem to need a reason first. And the bit I’m still reaching for is doing it with no reason at all. Pure play. Making something that doesn’t have to be anything.

I bought a fresh pack of pastels in the art shop. Will they end up in a drawer, barely used? It’s yet to be seen. But right now I have an urge to do some mark making, just for the hell of it. So I’m going to follow it, and see where it leads.