What is the forbidden fruit of your art?

What do you seek to challenge that you were raised not to challenge?

What is yearning to be your subject but you cannot explicitly bring it out?

What topic seems off-limits yet you have so much to say?

What is calling to be shared but you don’t want to stir the pot?

What makes it forbidden? Is it fear of rejection, criticism, power, pity, scorn or being alone?

Find the reason. Make friends with it.

And then eat that forbidden fruit.

It may be a nibble at first. See how it tastes. And then when you’re ready, devour it.

Art seems like a natural release of the busy-ness of the city. You see it everywhere. In the way people dress. In the graffiti on park benches. In even the street performers who add to the cacophony of sounds on the streets. The city is alive, and it seems like inspiration hits you in the face everywhere you look. There is an urgency that propels artists to create right then and there before they lose that glint of an idea.

But what if art were to come from a seemingly less chaotic place like the suburbs? Can it?

In the city, art is a response to the constant flow and change of people and events. It may feel like the suburbs where obligations and schedules run a routine, Groundhog’s Day existence cannot create “good” art.

But what if art was the way to break out of those obligations, complacency and routine and instead, towards motion? What if it is what mobilizes us from a comfortable existence towards change? What if it was done for that purpose?

Moving from the hustle and bustle of the city, the suburbs seem like a lackluster, albeit stable, existence.

The city feels so alive, full of light and brimming with creative energy. The suburbs are comfortable, no hustle and bustle. No buzz in the air of what is new and interesting. The suburb’s branding and appeal has always been one of contentment and idealism.

We tell ourselves that we go to the exciting city for art and culture. And return to normalcy on our square, white picket fenced lots.

We could tell ourselves the story that our creative selves were left in the cities.

But relying on our surroundings to inspire and support our creativity is a good excuse to stop making art.

Art has always been made. In caves, on farms, in deserts, in isolation, in gatherings.

Art doesn’t need the hustle and bustle. It does not need to come alive in places that feel electrifying.

It only needs a creator willing to create – no matter how comfortable they are.

Our passions are not all or nothing.

They come and go as priorities and circumstances shift.

What if we imagine all of the things we love to be in our orbit? Some with stronger pulls, some with weaker.

And as time passes and seasons change, different things will have a stronger pull.