Creatives VS. Non-Creatives
“Avenging Angel of Chaos” Aiken, SC April 2026
Hello Friend,
In February 2025, an online publication called South Carolina Voyager reached out to me to do an online interview. I checked it out, and it was a for real publication, so I did it. They sent me a set of questions to answer. It was alright, and my family were likely the only ones to read it. Then, January this year, they reached out again, because they had started a new publication called CanvasRebel. Again, they sent me some questions to dive into, such as things my parents did right, if I have a mission driving my creative journey and other general info about me.
What this week’s blog is about, is one of the questions and how they wrote it. What I have below is a longer take on the question and what I really think about the idea of “creatives vs. non-creatives”. Here is a link to the article on CanvasRebel. (Be prepared, there is an overly large photo of yours truly right when you open it. If you need to overt your eyes until you get to the story, I understand.)
CanvasRebel: Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
When I first read this question, I had a visceral reaction to it. That they would even use the term “non-creatives” really threw me. If there is something I very much want to get across in these blogs – and in my life – is that everyone has the potential – and even need – to be creative. I get upset when I see people in the “creative” space, or people that call themselves “creatives”, segregating themselves away from people they don’t see as creative, or I guess, as their type of “creative”. It reminds me of the Peter Gabriel song “Not One of Us.” “How can we be in, if there is no outside” (Here’s a YouTube video that has his intro to the song.)
And that’s why I come down on hard on this set of labels. Why are they pushing a bunch of people to the outside? Was it that they were not one of the “cool kids”, “jocks”, “preppies” or other popular cliques in school? So, they now need to make some type of wall that only they can be inside, pushing others out and then taunting them that they are “Not One of Us”?
“Angel Dreaming in Chaos” Aiken, SC April 2026
Again, some of the reasons I started this blog was a way for me to express my creativity in a newer, more expanded way, as well as to maybe get others to think about creativity in a more expansive and inclusive way. I want to show how everyone has different types of creativity and they express it in different ways. And the main reason I sign off these blogs and my emails with “keep creating what you do”.
The way CanvasRebel worded the question assumes there are people who are not creative and likely never will be creative, and thus, likely won’t understand my journey as a “creative”. The flipside of this question is that creative people like me might not understand what a “non-creative” journey might be like. But aren’t we all having some type of creative journey through our lives?
True, there are many people who never get to express their creativity to its full extent for many reasons. But they often still can and do creative things inside or outside their careers or in their hobbies. Yes, there are people that don’t pursue the more obvious creative endeavors or make it their livelihood. If we really step back and think about it, is there any career or job that doesn’t have at least some level of creativity to it? Even if the people doing it don’t consider themselves as a creative person, likely they are doing creative acts within it.
My parents on one of their first dates in June 1954. My mom showing of her fashion sense early on. My dad was just starting his engineering career.
I’ll use my parents as examples. My dad was the consummate engineer, and throughout most of his life I don’t think he or my family ever really thought of him as “creative.” But it was while reading Chase Javis’s book, “Creative Calling”, that I had to reevaluate how I defined creativity for myself and for others. I thought back to the times my dad would pore over engineering drawings and plans to find out why something wasn’t working the way it should. How he could overcome logistical and budgetary constraints to come up with possible solutions that nobody else had seen. One of his greatest achievements in his career was as the project director of a one-of-a-kind plant being built in New Zealand. Taking the plans and making them a reality was about four years of his career. I’d have to say that was one big creative act by a whole lot of people in many different countries. And isn’t that the nature of creativity? Taking what looks like a completely unlikely and unique idea and making it a workable reality? Over the past few years, I started to realize that engineers where not the least creative people, but likely the most creative people. (Though, don’t get me started with my dad’s “creative scoring” in golf.)
Then there was my mom. She was the typical stay-at-home mom from the mid-1950’s to the mid-1980’s – yeah, when you have eight kids, your stay-at-home time is that long. While I was growing up, I would not have thought of my mom as creative. But, thinking about it now, she had to be very creative to make meals that 10 people would be willing to eat, on a limited budget no less. And it wasn’t that she cooked the same thing over and over, she cooked a lot of different meals. You would think after doing that for so long, she would be totally done with cooking when she had the chance. Actually, throughout her whole life, she loved to be in the kitchen making meals and trying new things. She would make different cakes and cookies to have out for us or that she would mail to us as “care packages.” Even though both my parents came from very humble backgrounds, my mom knew how to dress. She was a fashion maven even from an early age. She had a flair for putting together an ensemble – even to go shopping. (The photo above is one of many of her dressed to the 9s)
The grotto where my parents are buried on the land my sisters own near Hillsborough, NC. October 2025
Yes, these were typical mid-20th century roles – the hard-working engineer, and the stay-at-home mom – though, the point I hope I am making is, they found ways to be creative, and they weren’t trying to be “creatives”. Particularly during a time when people were not really talking about creativity – unless it was about their elementary-school kids – it’s amazing looking back how creative they were, and the people around then were.
So, I guess my advice to anyone who might consider themselves as a “non-creative”, is step back and think about what ways you might be more creative than you give yourself credit for. Were there times you come up with a solution to any problem? Did you overcome any obstacles in your life or career? Did you do anything that others might have thought of as “outside the norm” for that situation? Then, I would argue, you have engaged in some type of creative act, whether you think of it that way or not. I really hope people can see past the labels of “creative” and “non-creative, and just look for ways they are already creative, and build from there.
My challenge this week for us is to take some time to look around at the people in our lives that we might have thought of as “non-creative” – and yes, it can even be ourselves – and look a little deeper. Are there ways creativity is coming through that helps us all to be a little more expansive and inclusive in what it means to be a “creative”?
Thank you and keep creating what you do.
Patrick Krohn
April 2026