Creativity & Originality: Why Your Ideas Still Matter

I have anxiety. I have so many fears that I’m stepping on people’s toes or accidentally taking their thoughts, ideas, or designs. Logically, I know that all creativity builds on something we’ve seen before, but that doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking to put my ideas out there.

That is really what creativity is. Even the great artists and designers borrowed ideas and techniques from others. The originality comes from what they did afterwards, how they played, explored, and developed their own unique voice.

You develop your creative voice by taking a technique that speaks to you and experimenting with it. Keep playing. Keep growing. Keep adding your point of view until it feels like yours. Nobody else can see the world exactly the way you do, because nobody else has lived your life.

If I let my anxiety win, I would never make anything new. I would be too afraid of being unoriginal. But if the greats had felt the same way, we would not have their incredible work to look up to.

As I was thinking about all this, I came across a blog post by Cristina Colli on creativity and originality. One quote really stuck with me:

"This is how creativity works - it builds on other people's ideas, and grows from there. In fact, if you wait to have an original idea before you create, chances are you will get very little done. Everything has already been done. Nothing is completely original."

That quote reminds me of the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, which encourages creatives to embrace influence instead of fearing it. His core message is that nothing is completely original, and that is actually a good thing. What matters is how you mix your influences and how your own experiences shape the final result.

Of course, this does not mean copying other people’s work and claiming it as your own. But in quilting, for example, there are only so many ways to arrange half-square triangles. The originality comes from your choices, like color, size, placement, negative space, and quilting design. That is where your creativity shines through.

So today, I challenge you to take something common, like HSTs, and transform it into something that screams you. Try new color combinations, different orientations, or unexpected scale. Start with something familiar, then keep experimenting until your voice comes through loud and clear.

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