A lot of creative people harbor this myth of the artist who works alone (usually in an attic or secret studio someplace), slaving away at their life’s masterwork in secret. “This will be my Great American Novel when it’s finished!” they might cry, or “I’ll show my paintings to the public when they’re ready!”
Here’s the thing, though: while a lot of artists definitely work alone (hell, I wrote an entire novel about this idea), rarely do they work in isolation.
That’s because, for a lot of creative people, while the actual creation process takes place alone (the writing, the painting, the composing, etc.), they still have communities of other creative people they can engage with.
What Is a Creative Community?
I use the term “community” loosely here, because these communities take many different forms, When we’re younger, we often find them through school, where we’re around people our own age and there are set structures (the Drama Club, the Art Club, etc.) that link up people with shared interests. If you’re lucky enough to have a job or career where you’re around other like-minded creative people, you might find community through your work, or maybe you have friends or even family members you can talk to about your creative process and share it with.
These communities and relationships can be invaluable for any creative person. They give you a chance to not only share how things are going with your own work, but to see what other people are doing and how they’re handling the challenges of the creative life. You can be more open without having to explain your setup to people who don’t get it, and get new ideas for how to move forward. They’re also an amazing source of encouragement, since the people in your creative community can support your work, whether it’s emotionally, financially, or just through showing up.
Though I work alone, I’m a member of not one but two (!) different writing groups. Both groups meet once a month over Zoom to share writing and talk about how things are going, and while they have different atmospheres and the people in them have different outlooks on their goals and processes, I enjoy both greatly. I also have a handful of other writer friends I can email, video call, or meet in person to talk to about how things are going and feel like I’m not just working in isolation.
The Challenges of Finding a Creative Community
As we get older, though, it can be harder to find these kinds of communities. Our friends get busier and maybe stop pursuing the same creative dreams they used to, and we don’t have school anymore to provide us with avenues for meeting other creative people. It can be harder to meet people as an adult, especially in a post-pandemic work-from-home Zoom environment.
At different times of my life I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a creative community, or felt the particular sting of one that had dissolved or wasn’t functioning anymore. This can be incredibly discouraging, since you go from working as a part of something bigger to feeling like you’re the only one in the entire world who’s working toward creative goals.
If you’re at this point in your creative life, please, don’t despair! If you’re looking to discover a new creative community, try one of the options below to see if you can reignite that spark that comes from talking to other like-minded people:
Reach Out to Old Friends
Old friends have the advantage of already knowing you, and you already know them, which makes starting that much easier. If you have friends, classmates, or members of a previous creative group who might be interested in talking about your shared creative interests, reach out and see if they’d like to meet or talk. If you pitch a plan and come prepared with ideas, you’d be amazed at how things could take off!
Find Communities In Your Area
This can be daunting at first, but well worth the effort. Even rural areas have people who want to get together, so keep an eye out for in-person bulletin boards, free publications that list groups or events, or retail stores that specialize in your creative field (bookstores, music stores, etc.). Meetup, Craigslist, and even Facebook can list opportunities too—it never hurts to see what’s out there!
Seek Out Online Communities
A lot of people find enjoyment with purely online communities, or got their start there when they were younger. For adults, the online world still has a lot to offer: Writers can hang out on sites like Scribophile and Wattpad that let you share your own writing and comment on the writing of others, Instagram is huge for illustrators and artists, and a lot of Patreon creators even have communities where you can reach out to other like-minded people. Browse around and see what’s out there!
Final Thoughts
I’ve been thinking about the issue of creative communities even more since I started working from home as a writer and editor, which meant that I wasn’t meeting people in-person through my Day Job anymore. Through this transition, both belonging to writing groups and being able to talk with other writers online have been incredibly helpful for me, because when you’re working on a long-term project like a novel, sometimes it can feel like you’re working in total isolation and no one cares about the work you do.
Again, I can’t stress enough the value of having other creative people to talk with, because not only are there practical benefits to sharing resources and ideas, they also make you feel like your work is part of something bigger, rather than something you’re entirely alone on.