Creativity in Confinement: Art in School Systems
How art became something to measure and control. Awareness of how play and child-like wonders become something to grade.
In my first blog, I shared how I saw the world as a canvas when I was a child.
But as I grew, that wonder didn’t vanish. I realize now my expression was simply confined.
and school was one of those places that further confined my wonder. Even though, it was supposed to nurture creativity.
In this post, I want to talk about what it felt like to create in those spaces where art became something to measure up to someone else's standards.
In art class, I was taught to draw lines exactly as the teacher instructed.
Perfect circles, perfect shading, perfect replication.
My creative spark was given a ruler and a set of rules and told to follow them. It didn’t matter if I felt inspired or connected.
What mattered was: staying inside the lines, getting the technique “right.”
This idea of perfection... Subliminally ingrained in us through this constant grading of something as subjective and intimate as art.
This squeezed the life out of my expression. I learned that creativity wasn’t about joy or self-expression; it was about meeting other expectations. About pleasing the teacher, about getting an “A.”
My art became mechanical, an exercise in ticking boxes instead of a dance of color and feeling.
I lost my creative spark around nine years old. That was the age when I realized that even in art class, I couldn’t just be myself.
I had to fit into a mold that someone else decided. The freedom I felt when I was five became a distant memory.
My art became something to endure, not something to celebrate.
Years later, at seventeen, I was blessed with an art teacher who gave us a little more freedom. He allowed us to create our own pieces, not just copy someone else’s idea.
For a moment, I felt a flicker of my old creative self.
But even then, it felt incomplete because deep down, I still didn’t feel safe to create.
I was still looking over my shoulder, waiting to be judged, graded, or corrected.
This is not just my story.
It’s the story of so many of us
who were told inadvertently that creativity is only worthy if it fits a narrow definition.
Who were taught that art has to be perfect to matter.
Who learned that our value as creators comes from someone else’s approval, not from our own hearts.
Creativity in confinement is not true creativity.
It’s a shell of what’s possible when we’re allowed to create freely.
But I believe deeply that the real artist in each of us is still there, waiting.
Waiting for us to see that art is not about perfection. it’s about presence.
It’s about the joy of making something that is wholly, beautifully ours.
Today, I invite you to reflect on where your creativity has been confined.
Where you have been told to stay small, to stay safe, to stay within the lines.
I invite you to imagine what might happen if you gave yourself permission to color outside of them.
“I learned to trade my authenticity for acceptance when…”
Reflect on the moments in your life when you felt you had to choose between your true self and the approval of others. Was it family, teachers, or peoples around you?
Write about the messages you received about what was “good” and what was “too much.”
Explore how these messages shaped your relationship with yourself?
Let your words be a soft uncovering of the ways voices shaped you.
and when you're ready release them.