Creativity Quote by Barbara Januszkiewicz

“Ideas come through us, not from us” is an artist’s quiet rejection of the lone-genius myth. Januszkiewicz frames creativity less as ownership than as permeability: the maker as conduit, not proprietor. It’s a small grammatical pivot with big cultural consequences. “From us” implies authorship, mastery, a clean origin story you can sign and sell. “Through us” admits messier inputs: other people’s images, stray conversations, history, politics, the weather, the body’s moods. The line demotes the ego without demoting the work.

The intent feels practical as much as philosophical. In studios, the best moments rarely arrive on command; they arrive when you’re working, looking, failing, revising. “Through” validates process: show up, set conditions, let something pass. It also slyly absolves the artist of total control. If ideas are passing through, then blocks, detours, even accidents aren’t moral failings; they’re part of the current.

Subtext: humility, but also a defense against commodification. If ideas aren’t “from” you, they can’t be fully privatized. That resists a market logic that treats art as a personal brand and creativity as extractable intellectual property. There’s a communal ethic hiding in the mysticism: influence isn’t theft; it’s the medium.

Context matters: a contemporary artist speaking in an era obsessed with originality, “content,” and now AI. The quote reads like a reminder that creativity has always been recombinant, collaborative, and haunted by sources we don’t control. It’s less anti-author than anti-ego: make yourself available, and the work gets bigger than your name.