When I was younger, I fell full into the myth of the tortured artist. I inhaled the work of Kerouac and Pollock and Thompson. I worshiped at the altar of Arbus and Ginsberg and Warhol. I cried in solidarity with the lives of Basquiat and Haring.

I made a lot of mistakes. I mistook pain for authenticity and thought that to create was to also destroy. That there was no one without the other. And, as a direct result, I’m lucky to be writing this. I could bore you with tales of close calls or of loved ones that didn’t fare so well and lost, or details half-remembered or eulogized in partial memory by people that claimed to be “Artists.” With a capital “A.” It’s neither romantic nor exciting nor even interesting. It’s boring in that it mistook destructivity as the ultimate catalyst and origin of creativity. Those days, those years, are nothing to be proud of, even though I have scores of friends and colleagues who have the same tales. It’s just wasted time, wasted promises, wasted breath.

But it was craft, that saved me.

You see, there is no myth of the tortured crafter. Its roots in utilitarianism, need and progress had little time for chaos. Little time for upper middle-class time wasting in the pursuit of the perfectly executed cocktail or party or hazy work. While we were all destroying ourselves and claiming to be authentic, the real authenticity was covering our beds, in our kitchen cupboards, hidden in dusty trunks. The real authenticity, the real creativity, was craft.

I often joke that my life didn’t start until I was 26, when I started knitting. Well, it’s not such much a joke as it is the whole and honest truth.

Those nights of wrapping wool around a needle to create something with my own two hands sutured me together more than all the reams of paper I had written in haste trying to recall what had happened the night before thinking that I was onto something. That I was really living. Those holey crooked scarves were not just creations that kept me warm, they were reaffirmations that creativity was real, true and honest. As I watched the fabric grow in my lap, the scarves getting longer and longer, I was pushing away false myths and idols, and embracing something more stronger and powerful.

And with each night of knitting, I moved more and more into the sacred space of creativity. I joined the women of Gee’s Bend and the arpilleristas of Chile and a long line of my own female ancestors as my fingers created and bled and made items that weren’t called art and were deemed a lesser creation. In time, as I began to learn more about myself and about craft I began to see the truth in craft, even though it’s not always aesthetically pleasing for galleries and white walls.

[photo via Flickr user life of pei]

The creative work of soldiers and warriors, Afghan war rugs, the Just Work Economic Initiative, Emerge, Fine Cell Work, Vollis Simpson along with others taught me the true power, potential and gift that is craft.

They taught me that true creativity begets joy not pain, and is born out of hope, not destruction. They obliterated the myth of the tortured artist and allowed me to see craft for what it is. A gift. Positivity. Enjoyment. Fulfillment. Love. Life.

While I’ll always love the former list of creatives in this post, I’ll always draw strength and the spirit of life from the latter. Because craft is not about destruction or pain, it’s a gift to be invited in, savored and celebrated. And in that celebration, thankfully, there is no space for negativity and false hopes.

There’s nothing but love and creating and laughing and living, in full, in beauty and in the light.