ISSUE 8: creativity vs. curation

why gathering influence is necessary… and why it isn’t the same as creation

As I write this, it’s 6:05pm and I’m on a plane from Texas to Mexico City.

I made a short surprise trip to see my best friend for her birthday- something her husband and I miraculously pulled off without arousing suspicion. A feat, when you consider the accommodations required for the four kids (six + under) between the two of us.

We stayed at one of my favorite historic hotels, the Adolphus in Dallas. (Please check out if you find yourself in that neck of the woods). The way some people are foodies is the way I am about unique hotel experiences. I spend an unreasonable amount of time researching interesting, under-the-radar boutique hotels around the world. And I wanted her to experience the old-world glamour still radiating inside its 1912 bones.

I’m on my way home now—happy, tired, and full of thoughts, if you’ll indulge me.

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It has probably become clear in recent posts, I’ve been on a deep dive into the energetics of creativity, in all its forms. Not to simply admire it or accept it, but to turn it over, look at it from all sides, and notice what it actually emits on a vibrational level.

Which led me to a misunderstanding I see everywhere (and one I’ve lived inside myself): the blurring of curation and creativity. They’ve been folded into one vague idea, and I think that confusion is part of why so many people hesitate (slash panic) to even call themselves creative at all.

I think there is a necessary phase of creativity that looks like consumption.

And I don’t think we need to villianize it- we need to understand what it’s purpose is.

In college art classes, I treated the greats as information. I didn’t yet know what I even liked—only what had already (apparently) collectively been agreed upon. If everyone had already rallied together and decided something was “good,” it felt reasonable to assume it was worth aspiring to, worth surrounding myself with, worth learning from.

So I curated from that place.

If I enjoyed something (or was told to enjoy something), I pulled it closer. Different styles of clothing. Different approaches to art and writing. Even different ways of speaking. It was messy as hell. Nothing matched. There was no clear through-line. I look back and cringe at its haphazard earnestness.

At the time, it looked (and felt) unfocused. And it was.

But in retrospect, that was the point.

That stage wasn’t creation. It was fluency-building.

I see this. I like this. I’ll keep it in the pile.

Creation..actual creativity.. begins when you stop operating inside a room of rules you didn’t realize you’d inherited as truth. And the only way to recognize those rules is to live with them long enough to feel where they chafe you.

Ya… I don’t actually want to paint that way. No, I legit feel like a clown in those clothes. This school system doesn’t make sense to me. That vacation destination feels off. Yaaaa… I don’t like that book that everyone keeps insisting on. It’s not being defiant. It’s simply recognizing what you’ve been sold to like and what you really do connect with.

That break tends to happen in one of two ways: either you’re exposed to very little, so there’s nothing to perform up against—or you’re exposed to so much that you can finally step far enough back to see the shape of things. The brilliance and the blind spots. From that distance, influence loosens its grip a little bit.

I remember once telling a friend, almost indignantly, that it made absolutely no freaking sense to me that we don’t paint/wallpaper ceilings. Like wait- hold up- how did it become normal to leave one entire side of a room.. blank? As if we collectively agreed to pretend they don’t even exist. The more I thought about it, the more bizarre it felt… this enormous plane of possibility, ignored simply out of collective habit.

When I decided I wanted to start painting my ceilings years ago, I was widely advised not to. “You’ll regret it,” was said often and earnestly.

And for a moment, I believed that.

But by then, I had been exposed to so much- places, cultures, art, homes, design languages… and endless Pinterest boards (lol).. that I could step away from trend and hear my own visual instincts more clearly. What looked “wrong” inside the rules of the 2010s looked obvious (almost duh) outside of them. The advice wasn’t neutral. It was simply what we all agreed upon as the rules to follow. In this case- white popcorn ceilings. (MAKE IT MAKE SENSEEE).

(Now, I get that people paint their ceilings all the time now, but at the time, it was rare enough that people thought I was crazy.)

But I bring that up, because how many times have we blindly followed fashion rules, home rules, social rules- that kind of didn’t actually resonate with us?

Because our lived experience actually brought to light what is ours (not the collective’s).

This is how voices form. Not just artistic ones—human ones.

The way someone speaks, pauses, gestures, jokes, or tells a story is shaped by where they were born, who they loved, what their friends and family are like, what work industries trained their nervous system. No voice is better than another. It’s personal information transferred into muscle and sound.

Art works the same way.

Nothing is inherently good or bad. We forget this. It’s simply data. And when you remove praise from the equation, you start to see more clearly. Because, first of all, what is widely accepted is rarely exceptional- it’s simply agreeable. Middle-of-the-road things move faster. They ask less of us.

True creativity doesn’t aim to be accepted.

It aims to be a lived, expressed truth.

So if you can’t quite find your style- your home, your closet, even the way you cook… it doesn’t mean you don’t have it. It means you’re still in curation. Still gathering. Still learning what actually resonates when comparison and consensus are removed. And that takes awhile. For everyone. You don’t come into this world knowing how to make the perfect playlist, how to write, or even what socks go with certain trousers. And those that do, it’s because they weathered the storm of the spin out that they didn’t have taste while they learned.

And if you’ve moved past curation and find yourself quietly questioning why certain things were ever accepted in the first place—welcome. That’s the edge where creation begins. Putting things together (whether it’s ingredients, words, songs, or materials) from the distinct voice of who you are. Creation is as big as it is small. The way you write a note, set a table, navigate a conversation. To recording albums or engineering rockets. But creation is the act of taking the raw curated information of what you’ve learned and rearranging it a way only you can.

Copy + paste is not creativity, even if it’s recognizing what someone else did well.

You can’t shortcut this process. But when I find myself back into curation mode, it’s helpful for me to expose myself to more of what I’m drawn to (the more varied the better!)- and trust my instincts when they start to speak.

XO,

Kendall

P.S. Beauty, to me, is the balm to help smooth out the edges of mundane life. To remind us that there is something bigger, and more levitating, than taxes and dishes. Beauty is the breath that helps us travel though. And because of that, there’s no need to put undo pressure on it. It’s there so please us. To add romance to the essence of life. A breadcrumb trail that never ends in ways to surprise and delight us. So there’s no “right” or “wrong” in it. We were not put on this earth to amass the best taste. It’s allowing taste be the evidence of us always coming closer to the things that give us exhale and joy on our journeys.