Back in 2018, I was trying to come up with a name for this daily art challenge I was putting together. I threw around some ideas and eventually settled on “Making Art Everyday”. It was the perfect phrase (and the domain was available)! 😉 Fast forward a few years, and I cannot tell you how many times my spell-checker (and my husband, Geoff) has told me that it should be Making Art Every Day…”Every Day” being two words.

I mean, technically, they’re right, but it got me thinking about the definition of “everyday” vs. “every day.”

“Every day” means each day, for example, I feed my pet hedgehog every day.

“Everyday” is an adjective that means ordinary or commonplace. For example, I wear these pink glitter socks on special occasions, but the white ones are my everyday socks.

Ok, I know you didn’t subscribe to this newsletter for a grammar lesson, but stick with me, I am going somewhere with this.

While I do think it’s important to literally make art every day, I think it’s even more important to make art everyday. To work towards creativity and art-making becoming an ordinary, commonplace occurrence in our lives. Creativity isn’t just for “talented” people bestowed with magical artistic gifts at birth. Time spent creating is not a special treat, and it’s not for special occasions. It’s for everyone, and we can do it anytime, as often as we want.

So the next time you read the name of this challenge and think you need to be literally making something every day or you’ve failed, remember that your goal is really to be making art everyday, and celebrate that your creative practice is becoming a normal (but magical) part of your life.