I Am Drawn to the Gifted: Learning to See, Learning to Create

Discovering My Creative Identity

I have always been pulled toward talented people. I can't help myself. They could be the rudest, most difficult people in the world, and still I find myself fascinated. There's something they possess that feels almost otherworldly to me. That ability to birth something from nothing, to reach into the void and pull back beauty, meaning, truth. Not anyone can make art. I know this in my bones, and it both thrills and terrifies me. 

Early Struggles with Artistic Identity

Growing up, I was paralyzed by anxiety about my own abilities. I loved drawing. Loved the feel of pencil on paper, the way lines could become something more than themselves. But I was too afraid to truly try, too terrified of confronting the possibility that I might not have that special something I so admired in others. What if I wasn't one of the chosen ones? What if my artistic identity was just a fantasy? What if I was just ordinary?

I took a few drawing lessons, but they felt wrong from the start. The methodical approach, the step-by-step instruction, the way creativity was broken down into digestible chunks. It wasn't how the magic worked in my mind. I wanted to express myself, not follow a formula. I wanted to touch that mysterious place where ideas live and breathe. But the classroom felt like the opposite of mystery. It felt like an autopsy.

So I stopped. I told myself I wasn't meant for pure art, that I didn't have the talent, the dedication, the something that separated the real artists from the wannabes.

Then I started reading, and in reading I was drowning myself. I was creating my imaginary creative world, living with the characters of the book. In those pages, I found a different kind of creation. One where I could be both audience and participant, where my imagination could run wild without the terrifying blank canvas staring back at me. I could build entire worlds in my mind, inhabit them, reshape them. The characters became my companions, their struggles my own, their victories a kind of collaboration between author and reader. It was an early form of creative practice, though I didn't recognize it at the time.

Architecture as a Bridge Between Art and Logic

But then I discovered architecture.

Architecture, for me, was not art. It was something in between, like digital design. Half art, half engineering. It was a safe harbor where I could create without having to claim the terrifying title of "artist." Here was a field that demanded creativity but grounded it in purpose, in function, in the concrete reality of buildings that had to stand up and serve people. I could sketch and dream and imagine, but always with the comforting framework of structural logic, building codes, practical constraints.

It felt like permission to be creative without having to be purely creative. Without having to answer that haunting question of whether I had real talent or was just pretending.

The decision was not easy. I had doubts. So many doubts. I was afraid because I knew I would have to take painting classes, drawing classes, all those artistic foundations that had terrified me as a child. What if I failed? What if everyone else was naturally gifted and I was exposed as a fraud? But something deeper pulled me forward, stronger than my fear.

Finally, I made the decision and started my creative journey at Yerevan State Architecture University.

Learning Through Observation and Inspiration

It was not easy at the beginning. There were so many talented students, which, as always, I was admiring. I found myself doing what I'd always done. Gravitating toward their work, studying their sketches, watching how effortlessly they seemed to translate ideas into lines and forms. That familiar mix of awe and inadequacy settled over me like an old, uncomfortable coat.

But then I started to figure something out. The lessons I was most interested in were art history and history of architecture. While others excelled at technical drawing or design studios, I came alive when we studied the stories behind the buildings, the cultural forces that shaped spaces, the way architecture carried the dreams and struggles of civilizations within its walls.

There were also a few lessons about composition that changed my perspective and gave me fundamental knowledge I still use to this day. These weren't like those rigid drawing classes from my childhood. They were about understanding how elements work together, how balance and tension create meaning, how space itself could tell a story. For the first time, I felt like I was learning the grammar of visual language rather than just copying techniques. I was developing my own creative eye. The meaning of that phrase finally made sense. It wasn't about talent. It was about learning to see.

And I started to use colors differently. Not just as decoration or mood, but as part of the architectural language itself. Colors became tools for defining space, for creating hierarchy, for guiding the eye and the body through a building. They weren't separate from the design. They were the design, woven into the very fabric of how a space would be experienced.

Finding My Creative Practice

It seems I went far away from where I started. But lately, I have this urge to write, to talk about my experience. Maybe this is my creative memoir. Maybe it's a way of finally understanding what is artistic identity and where mine fits in. All these years of admiring talent from a distance, of finding safe harbors for my creativity, of learning through stories and history and the grammar of visual language. Maybe it's all been leading to this moment where I need to speak my own truth.

If someone asked me to describe yourself as an artist, I wouldn't know how to answer. Because I am not an artist. But I am a creative. I would love to be an artist, but I wasn't gifted enough to be one, and I trained myself to be creative instead. I can't say creativity is something you are born with. I am sure I was not born creative. I've learned and tried my best to become one. My creative identity was built, not inherited.

By creative I mean I want to create. I have an urge to create. When I am only managing and doing little creative work, I am disgusted. The need to make something, to bring ideas into being, to shape and form and build. It's not optional for me anymore. It's become as essential as breathing.

Embracing My Creative Identity

I am creative. Though I value logic and facts, my choices come from somewhere deeper. From instinct and feeling. I live with whatever comes from those choices, the failures as much as the successes.

I am creative. Everything I've written here will probably irritate other creative people who experience things completely differently. We never agree on anything, and somehow that fierce disagreement, that stubborn attachment to our own way of seeing. That's what proves we're all part of the same tribe.

I am creative. I feel embarrassed by how little I know about most things in the world, yet in the few areas that consume me, my obsessions, I trust my judgment completely. These obsessions save me from having to face too much of life's harsh reality at once. Because when you really look at existence without the buffer of something you care deeply about, it can be overwhelming.

I am creative. My art self identity may never match what I once dreamed it would be. But it's mine. And I hope that someday, when I'm no longer here, at least one person will remember something I made and find it meaningful.