A few months ago, a friend messaged me with a few words of encouragement. It was a quick “hey, I haven't talked to you in a long while but I love all the art you’ve been producing and it’s fun to follow along.”
In fact I’ve gotten a lot of messages, and the majority are artistically incline people themselves. They are encouraged to see someone producing something because they know the own fears that circle around their artistic side. A lot of people want to make. They don’t.
For invisible forces holding back, for the keys that lock us in our own brain: some of us simply don’t. I feel like that’s why you see people stumble along not making much of anything and then suddenly they are lit by a fire. A forty year old mom will suddenly pick up her paintbrush after not touching one for 20 years. Absent minded hands will start doodling in the cubical. A girl might indulge in some of the projects she pinned on pinterest and never crafted.
All while quietly dismissing their validness. Shhh, that’s just my hobby.
I have been dormant
my artistic ideas and silly notions, I’ve been sitting on them. They used to escape into fanciful sketches on my paper during boring lectures. when I left college, I had not cultivated a habit of sitting to draw. My desire to draw, to create and invent has been there the whole time. Unfortunately I’m lazy. It’s easier to watch a show or read a book than to sit down and start.
I think my life changed when I read Twlya tharps “the creative habit”. It’s a quick read, you should get on that if you’ve never perused it.
I finally realized that my ideas where nothing if I never put them to paper. they’d be floating around in the dark forgotten closet that’s in my brain. It’s usually where I lose the important information and peoples name’s I’m supposed to remember. I also realized that for some people, they don’t need to share those ideas. I, however, do. I am 99% visual and I have realized that that is what I am called to do. that is my nitch in life. If you hit me on the head and I forget everything about my past, I’d still get back up and start doing something with art. It’s why I greedily eat up other artists posting new works. it’s why I get hooked into scrolling though photographers posts. It’s why even when I get down and have a dry spell where I do not work, I always find my way back to a pen or my camera. It took me the longest darn time to figure this out. It’s why I fumbled through college worse than a blind linebacker.
I WOKE UP
I am not longer waiting for life to land in my lap. I am not ignoring the passions in my heart. this was easier said than done. There were a few things that changed my perspective
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I accepted my identity as an artist. this sounds stupid even as I type it. but no joke. I stopped apologizing for being an artist. I realize we aren’t practical, I realize I’m not the best at what I do. I realize people think I’m a hipster for pursuing “pointless things” as opposed to real world skills. Because I call allow myself to call myself and artist, I can function as one.
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I stopped caring how people perceived me or my work. In a freeing way: if I fret to much about what people think I’d never get going.
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I started caring how people perceived my work. ……confused. me too. What I mean is, I finally acknowledge that I wanted to be good at what I do. In the words of Ron Swanson, I wanted to stop half-assing things. I also have put it in the standards of, will this sell, will this catch on. People can be a very positive motivation to push yourself farther and harder.
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I gave myself a habit, I forced myself to wedge in drawing just as one would fit in a jog or a cup of coffee. Just like exercising, it’s hard to get going but worth it in the long run.
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I created a space that spurs me to work. there’s a reason I keep my pencils in a cup sharp after I use them. I display the things that make me itch to use them. I try to restart my workspace if I’ve left it messy for to long. Clean paper and a tidy area gives you a chance to start afresh.
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