We spend so much of our creative lives chasing âmore.â
More time.
More money.
Better tools.
A bigger studio.
A cleaner life.
A quieter mind.
But if you study the greats long enough, you start to notice a strange pattern:
Our deepest creative potential doesnât get unlocked when life gives us moreâŚ
It gets unlocked when life strips us bare.
When all the extras fall away and weâre left holding only what is essential, what is fragile, what remains.
In 1941, Henri Matisse had everything taken from him.
Diagnosed with abdominal cancer, he had a surgery that left him wheelchair-bound and often bedridden.
He was too weak to stand in front of an easel.
Imagine that.
Your hands still aching to createâŚbut the very method youâve used your whole life is suddenly out of reach.
By the worldâs definition, his career as a painter was over.
And he couldâve surrendered to that narrative.
He couldâve drowned in grief for the version of himself he could no longer be.
But no...
Matisse did what every true artist eventually learns to do:
He embraced what remained and made something out of it.
He picked up scissors.
He asked his assistants to paint sheets of paper, and he began cutting shapes.
Leaves, bodies, birds, algae.
He called it drawing with scissors.
He pinned the shapes to his bedroom walls and rearranged them until they sang.
No easel.
No canvas.
No grand studio.
Just paper, scissors, handsâŚand gratitude.
And from that place of restriction he created the most joyful, childlike, luminous work of his entire life.
That is true Creative Gratitude.
The kind where you stop obsessing over what life took away and you pour 100% of your soul into what life left behind.
Because when youâre truly grateful for whatâs still available to you even if itâs small, even if itâs flawed, even if it feels deeply restrictiveâŚ
You stop waiting for perfect conditions.
And that is the moment you stop searching for more and instead you become more.
All through gratitude.
And to be honest, Iâve been thinking about gratitude today because I am grateful for you.
Not in a vague âemail newsletter sign-offâ wayâŚ
In the real creator-to-creator way.
In the âyou didnât have to be here but you chose to be hereâ way.
I believe a creation isnât complete until it is shared and witnessed.
So these words donât mean a thing without you on the other side of them.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for replying.
Thank you for wrestling with your own creative potential as I embark the same journey.
Thank you for making things, especially in days when it feels easier not to.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You are the fuel in this engine. You are the spark behind this fire.
And so today I just want to remind you that you already have everything you need to make magic.
Stay creative,
