i never really thought of myself as an artist or a writer. i always imagined artists to be “good” at art, to produce high volumes of art, and to have their art hung up in galleries or cafes, or in people’s homes and offices. i imagined writers to be people who sat in front of their laptop or notebook all day with the goal of creating a novel or a book of poems or some body of work that would eventually be published. that’s not really me. I just draw in my sketchbook, use markers, and paint on canvases sometimes. I write in my journal, sometimes about my day, sometimes about some issues going on in my mind or in my life, or about feelings of sadness or excitement or whatever may be coming up in that moment. writing and creating art have never been things that i do every single day; they’re just things that I do when i need to do them.
i’ve been learning, though, that you don’t need to quantify something (# of works produced, $ of profit made from selling products, rate at which act of art/work is performed) in order to enjoy it and for it to have meaning in your life.
sometimes i just really need to outlet something in my brain or body. whether it’s a combination of colors and shapes i wanna see on paper, a song that i would love to hear coming from my hands, a shoddily made crochet coaster that may never be used, or a jumbled mess of thoughts in my head that is aching to come out and stop tumbling around and rebounding within my brain.
what matters to me is that if i have something i feel like i want to do, i go ahead and do it. it has been the case for most of my life that i didn’t do this. i would get the urge to do something, but hold back for some reason; whether it be fear of judgment from other people, resistance to trying something new because i don’t want to be bad at it, etc..
at the ripe age of 23, however, i have realized that holding myself back is literally pointless, because what is the point of life if not realizing [aka. giving actual or physical form to] my inner world? why should i hold back the deepest parts of myself and deprive myself of seeing and believing that i am capable of creation, of love, of imperfection, or of vulnerability?
because it can be a vulnerable thing to create something and share it with the world. you are literally taking something that you’ve put your heart, time, thought, and soul into, and sending it out into the world like a little love baby.
but being vulnerable doesn’t have to feel scary. it’s only scary if you care about what other people think. cliché, i know, but it is true. if you put something out into the world and you truly believe that you have put in enough effort and thought into it so that it represents yourself and your vision, then the best thing you can do is open yourself up to the praise, neutrality, and critique of others. just don’t take it personally.
understand that everyone’s thoughts and thought processes are molded by what they grew up seeing and believing. they don’t dislike your work because your work inherently sucks (or because you suck); they oftentimes dislike it because it is different from what they’re used to, because it challenges their view of what the world is supposed to look like, or literally any other reason that doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of your work.
granted, that’s not to say that you should never listen to people’s thoughts and critiques if they disagree with you or dislike your work, because that’s also not really a great line of thinking, either – you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities for growth with that mindset. conversely, you can take in their words and examine if you see/feel some validity to them, then maybe keep those ideas in mind for your future projects.
in the end, though, you should be creating your work because it feels true to you, not to appease other people.
(I read a quote recently that kind of exemplifies this. though I can’t remember the exact words or who said it, the sentiment is that your art has to be created for the sole purpose of expressing yourself, because once it is created for the purpose of being seen by the rest of the world, then it becomes meaningless or something like that… and yeah!!! if you create something with the validation of other people in mind then it might as well cease to exist, because there r millions of people in the world and it’s impossible to satisfy everybody. the only thing that matters is that you satisfy yourself with what you’ve created, as well as the process of creating that thing.)
don’t place limits on yourself and your abilities before you even give yourself the chance to try. you never know what could start happening for you or the people you could meet once you start following your gut and being yourself.
