Category: Flow

On Art Creation: What Makes Art 'Good', and Who Decides?

4/20/2026

Wisdom for Wannabes host Jackie Morreale explores the essence of authentic creation, emphasizing the importance of honesty, emotion, and releasing the need for approval. Through personal stories and reflective prompts, she guides listeners to reconnect with their inner creative process and embrace vulnerability.

Topics:
• The difference between performing and creating
• Creating from emotion and truth
• Letting go of external validation
• The process of painting her grandmother as a metaphor for authenticity
• The importance of presence and connection in creation

Takeaways:
• Creating is about making something honest, not perfect.
• Releasing the need for approval opens up true creativity.
• Creating is a process of internal exploration and emotional expression.
• Letting go of control and expectations fosters authenticity.
• The act of creation is a form of release and self-discovery.

Quotes:
• "The goal isn't perfection, it's truth."
• "I was trying to paint a feeling."
• "Imagine that feeling has a shape or a color."

Chapters:
1 - The Question of Value in Creation (00:00)
2 - The Journey of Authentic Creation (00:29)
3 - Painting as a Means of Connection (01:21)
4 - Creating Beyond Approval (03:06)
5 - Imagination Exercise for Art (03:45)
6 - The Freedom to Create (05:08)

Jackie Morreale and her family at the Cornell Art Museum in Delray Beach, Florida, during April 2026, celebrating Jackie's birthday over art and family!

Transcript, On Art Creation: What Makes Art 'Good', and Who Decides?
Spoken and written by Jackie Morreale

1 - The Question of Value in Creation (00:00)

Is what I've created good?

In whose eyes?

Because that question almost stopped me from creating anything at all.

My name is Jackie Morreale, and I am the host of Wisdom for Wannabes, the podcast that seeks wise words in business, beauty and betterment.

I've spent years creating and almost immediately questioning it, second guessing it, how it would be received. And the truth is, if you're creating in that lens, you're not creating at all.

You're performing.

That's the moment I decided to cut the cord.

2 - The Journey of Authentic Creation (00:29)

Earlier today I found myself driving through the rain a recording session here in West Palm Beach, my first time recording in a studio outside of my own home. I didn't have a script, I didn't have a plan.

I just had this quiet hope that something meaningful would come out of this space if I showed up and let it.

Because that's what creating has started to feel like to me.

It's not about certainty, not about control.

Just willingness.

Creating something has nothing to do with impressing anyone. It's just taking something internal and making it visible.

An emotion becomes a color. A thought becomes a sentence. A feeling becomes a brushstroke.

For me, it always starts with the emotion. Instead of trying to fix it, I try to use it.

Because the goal isn't perfection, the goal is truth.

3 - Painting as a Means of Connection (01:21)

A few nights ago, that idea became real in a way I didn't expect. It was Easter. I was home alone.

After thinking about it all day, I finally sat down to paint my grandmother, who passed away a couple of months ago at the young age of 99 years old.

No sketch, no plan, just a blank canvas and a feeling.

I didn't want to make her look younger. I wanted to make her look like she lived a wonderful life. Every line on her face meant something. But the most important part was her eyes. Because without the eyes, it's nothing.

In the photo I was painting from, she was smiling, but she had just lost her husband of over 70 years. Her expression held everything on her face. Joy, because her family was around her, but also grief, longing.

I wasn't painting a face. I was trying to paint a feeling.

At first, a few times I painted her eyes, but they weren't right. They felt flat; not her.

I caught myself doing something I didn't expect. I started talking to her. 'Grandma, help me get your eyes right.'

I kept going, layer by layer. Adjusting the color, trying to find that exact shade, greenish blue, or bluish green, depending on the light of that day.

Trying to make them feel alive.

At one point, my dog, started barking in the other room. No one else was home. She just kept barking at the same spot. For a second, I stopped... because it felt like something, like a connection.

Maybe she was there. Maybe she wasn't.

But in that moment, it didn't matter because I wasn't painting anymore.

I was with her.

Creating something, really creating, doesn't feel clean or controlled. It feels uncertain; perhaps unfinished. It feels like starting without knowing where it's going.

Feels like frustration. Then a small breakthrough. For me, it was in getting the eyes.

Feels like listening more than actually doing. Like letting something move through you instead of forcing it into place.

4 - Creating Beyond Approval (03:06)

More than anything, it requires freedom.

Because the second I think about what someone else might think about what I'm creating, I freeze. I hesitate. I hold back.

When I let that go, and release it, everything opens up.

I'm not creating for approval; I'm creating to feel something. To process to remember something.

And that's enough.

Maybe creating isn't about making something beautiful. Maybe it's about making something honest.

Maybe it's not even about the finished product. Maybe it's about what happens inside of you while you're making it.

Because sometimes what you're really creating isn't a painting or a story.

You're creating closure, connection, understanding. or a release.

Just giving something inside of you a place to exist.

5 - Imagination Exercise for Art (03:45)

If you're still here, I want to I invite you to try something with me.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in. Slowly let it go.

Imagine you're sitting in front of a blank space, a blank canvas, a blank page, an empty room. There's nothing there yet.

No expectations, no pressure, no one watching, just space.

Don't try to change it, just notice it. Imagine that feeling has a shape or a color.

What does it look like?

Is it soft or sharp?

Bright or muted?

Still or moving?

Now gently place that feeling into the space in front of you. Let it take form.

There's no right way to do this. You're not creating for anyone else. You're just creating for yourself.

Now imagine a cord, a cord that connects you to other people's opinions, expectations, or what you imagine to be judgments. See it clearly, and now gently disconnect it.

Let it drift away. You don't need it here.

6 - The Freedom to Create (05:08)

Now return to what you're doing. Notice how it feels now. More open, and free.

Let your hands move, let your mind wander, let something new begin to form.

And when you're ready, slowly come back.

I'm still learning what it means to create, but I do know this: The more I let go of what other people think, the more honest my work becomes.

Maybe that's the point. You're free. Go have a beautiful day.

Jackie Morreale with her painting of Grandmother Mary, work in progress. Click to view more paintings by Jackie Morreale.

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Close Your Tabs! Reboot and Find Flow in a Noisy Mind

7/3/2025

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Hi there, Wisdom for Wannabes host Jackie Morreale here, to ask you a very simple question:

How many tabs open do you have on your browser right now?

How many tabs open do you have on your phone, of apps that you're using?

Simple question. For me, it was 23 on my browser and it was 12 on my phone.

It came up yesterday as a question from my child who was looking to find something on my phone and couldn't, because of all the noise that I kept open on my phone at all times. I literally have taught a colleague my method for crazy productivity with the 23 tabs open before and now I feel a little bit ashamed to have done that.

When we think about productivity, is it a matter of having 23 tabs open? Is it a matter of having five screens in front of us, which we are going to dissect information at the same time from? What I've learned is that productivity is something different.

If you want to be productive, try focusing on one thing.

That's where you're going to find your flow. (It is so difficult.)

If we think about our computers and what abuse we put them through with all these tabs open, all these programs running at the same time.

I do love my control C, control V. I did learn that in college from a professor who said your left hand has to be as productive as your right hand with the mouse and as your brain. That was a useful skill and I do use those copy paste shortcuts all the time.

But when we come to our computer... it's so bogged down with information that we wonder why sometimes the simplest solution for a health checkup for our computer is just to turn it on and restart it, right? Somehow that resets things.

If we think about our brain as a computer, how many things do we have going on in there?

How many apps do we have open in our own mind right now?

Is it 23? Is it 12? Is it two? Is it anything more than one?

How can you be present when you have so much noise open at the same time?

This is a question that I've really struggled with. I did not understand the feeling of flow and trying to create something. Trying to get into that state that's almost trance-like, where you can be completely creative and yourself and you just do. You've already been trained for this. You just do. You don't think. You just go with it.

You're in flow and it is present.

You see opportunities differently too when you turn down the noise.

If I think about my own brain and how to achieve this, it's a struggle. The struggle is real, especially in the marketing field where we have 23 tabs worth of social media and CMS for your website and PR for news that you want to release on a new product launch and all these different communication tools that we want to keep open at all times. If that important client emails us, we want to respond immediately. So we're checking our email. We're always present. We're always making ourselves present. But are we really present? Present by way of being able to do productive work, what we do best.

We're all bogged down with meetings. It's just meeting upon meeting upon meeting. So many of us are able to multitask during these meetings really well. But unless you're really present at the meeting, are you able to get anything from that meeting?

Whatever you're doing, if you have 23 tabs open, I invite you to be like your IT professional and say, please shut it down, reboot, start with the one thing, and see how far you can take that.

Something that helps me both as a marketing professional, as an entrepreneur, is I have a way of managing my projects. I have a lot of things going on in my head and I want to get them out. I want to keep it clear. One thing I've been able to use is a project management tool that I can take all the projects that I want to get done and put it in this tool.

As soon as I take it out of my brain and put it into this tool, it's removed from what I'm thinking about so I can think about exactly that one ticket or that one list item or that one priority that I want to get done first, that's at the top of the list. Once you achieve whatever that goal was, that baby step towards a bigger goal, you're ticking off your list and throwing into your "done" pile rather than "work in progress", it is the best feeling in the world.

I invite you to think about what tabs are open on your phone, on your computer, in your mind, and closing them down.

The project management software that I use is free. There's plenty of options out there. I invite you to take everything, all the noise that's going on in your head and put it down somewhere else, whether it's a list or in a project management software, put it somewhere where it's no longer going through your head. This is the only tool that I've been able to use to become more productive and to find more time in my day for the things that I really wanted to do that I never found time for, for years and years.

I'm a creative person, I love to design, I love to draw. I didn't draw for myself for 15 years.

How did I reboot and figure out a time to do this when there's just no time, when you have a job and you have a family and you have a life?

How are you possibly finding time to do something as simple as draw for five minutes a day?

I drew for five minutes a day every single day last month. The way to do this was just to prioritize it. I had to make sure that this was on my to-do list, that I did just a little something every single day. Do you know the wonderful thing about changing your routine and doing something?

Is that it's something that I looked forward to and still look forward to doing every single day. It's me time every single day. And it's time when I'm in complete flow for those five, 10 minutes, where I find something that I can just sketch, for the fun of it. There's nothing else going on. I am not scrolling. I am not seeing what's on the news. I'm not worried about tomorrow. I'm just trying to capture the details of something sitting in front of me on paper.

It's different for everybody, so find your thing.

If you can't find the time for your flow, it's a problem for your productivity. So figure out how to get your productivity in order. Close those tabs. Put them into some other list so you don't have to think about them and be present so you can find that flow.

I have to say this book helped me, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. "Tiny changes, remarkable results", the subhead, captures it.

There are so many little ways that you can make changes. I identified mine as I just had way too many tabs open in my life.

Figure out which tabs need to close in order to open the new ones.

Have a wonderful day.