We were assigned the book Art and Fear in my Art Theory class and told to share a little about our favorite passages. I thought it would make a great blog post....even though a lot is going on in the world right now, I still think it is important to figure out who I am as an artist and what I want to say...
“fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.” This quote probably resonates with me the most in my own work. Putting yourself out there is hard, especially when you think that everyone has high expectations for you. It feels bad when people are critical. When someone doesn’t like something you made, especially someone that you respect or love, it feels bad...it is hard to explain how bad it feels, but it feels like you have disappointed them in some way because your creation (a thing that did not exist before you created it from your mind, with your own two hands) might somehow disappoint that person because it isn’t quite up to their standards. It is completely irrational, but that fear is something that exists deep down and it is a big barrier to success, and it is demotivating. Knowing that you could have done better is one of the worst feelings in the world, knowing that you could have just spent a little more time, put a little more thought and effort into something might mean the difference between having something that you are proud to sign your name to versus something that just represents a huge waste of time. Being fearful that you just are not good enough to make that perfect ‘thing’ is another demotivator. What if I try and fail? If I try and believe that I will fail, why even try? If I try and succeed, it won’t quite be good enough anyway, so what is the point? I can’t do that, it looks too hard, and it isn’t worth it to me. These are all things that run through my mind when I am considering what to make. Also, this quote: “Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgement difficult. — Hippocrates (460-400 B.C.)” “The only work really worth doing — the only work you can do convincingly — is the work that focuses on the things you care about. To not focus on those issues is to deny the constants in your life.” I feel like the majority of what goes through my brain is discursive. I’m obsessively planning, making lists, figuring out what my next move is in terms of work, home, making dinner, packing for a weekend trip, and rehearsing conversations in my head. I don’t spend a lot of time in deep thought and careful concentration on what I really believe when it comes to bigger issues. This is a big barrier to my artmaking process. I’m too caught up in the planning of art making that I don’t make time to plan my art and I don’t really formulate ideas that are related to things I really care about. I don’t know what I really care about. I care ‘equally’ about all the big stuff (environment, politics, social issues) but none of those things resonate enough with me to inspire some sort of profound contemporary visualization. And some part of me thinks that the only things worth making art about are things that matter to me and to others. If the art piece doesn’t make someone think, then why bother? If the only things that I focus on are the minutia, then who really cares? Is there anything of value in that? Hasn’t someone else already had that point of view before me, and examined those same things in a similar way? How can my point of view be relevant? “And while a hundred civilizations have prospered (sometimes for centuries) without computers or windmills or even the wheel, none have survived even a few generations without art.” To answer the question from the last section, why bother to make art if it doesn’t matter? I guess that I fundamentally believe that I need to make art and it bothers me that I don’t have any answers to questions and that I can’t think about good enough questions to ask in my work. I know deep down that creating artwork is important for me as a human, and it is important for other people to look at artwork, to find beauty and truth in something created by another human…. Deep down, this phrase resonates with me as an art teacher too, I guess it is part of my teaching philosophy in many aspects. I needed art, and school provided me with an opportunity to make art and it changed my life. I love learning about other cultures, and how art permeates society. I have really loved learning all the new things in this class that I ‘knew’ but now I feel like I really know them...if that makes sense. “ART IS MADE BY ORDINARY PEOPLE. Creatures having only virtues can hardly be imagined making art. It’s difficult to picture the Virgin Mary painting landscapes. Or Batman throwing pots. The flawless creature wouldn’t need to make art.” It’s hard to imagine that Michaelangelo or Anselm Kiefer are ‘ordinary’ people. Um, no. They are extra-ordinary. We are all human, I get that...but it feels like they are geniuses. Elizabeth Gilbert has an amazing TED Talk called Your elusive creative genius. She talks about how prior to the Renaissance, the ancient Greeks and Romans blamed creative ideas on the daemons, the genius on your shoulder, the divine creature that gave ideas to the artists. During the Renaissance, after rational humanism took over and people started to be known for being geniuses she says that there is an overwhelming pressure to be creative, to have your next big idea, but maybe it doesn’t have to be quite so full of anguish if you can just accept that the most extraordinary aspects of your being did not come from you, maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you’re finished, with somebody else. She also talks about another theory she has about ideas, which is even more fascinating, she explains how ideas are sort of swirling around, just waiting to be paired with a human at any given moment and if they are manifested with the right person at the right time, then magic transpires. This article is so great because she says that we are usually too distracted with our everyday distractions that we don’t notice….so I guess how this relates to this quote from Art and Fear, is that maybe true artists are ordinary people, they are just paired up with the right daemon, at the right time and they have the right frame of mind to accept magic, when it swirls past them and it’s really freaking hard to get into that headspace every day. “Doubts, in fact, soon rise in swarms: "I am not an artist -- I am a phony. I have nothing worth saying. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Other people are better than I am. I'm only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever]. I've never had a real exhibit. No one understands my work. No one likes my work. I'm no good”….. Art is a high calling -- fears are coincidental. “Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. — Gene Fowler” Of course I have doubts. Every time I make something ugly, I doubt my own intelligence, ability and creativity. I AM A PHONY. That is how I feel quite often. I HAVE NOTHING WORTH SAYING. True. OTHER PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN ME. So, why bother. I feel like I know what it takes to get better and to be the best, but I’m too lazy and distracted by my own frivolous hobbies to spend time getting in the zone and putting forth the effort required to do the work. I want art to be a creative outlet AND I want everything I do to be a success. If it isn’t going to be worthy of a display, then why do it? This year, I challenged myself to do Inktober. Basically, it is a daily drawing prompt, every day for the entire month of October. I DID IT! Even while juggling a full time teaching job, graduate classes, parent teacher conferences, my husband’s birthday, and all the other things that make October ‘busy’. I didn’t have any extra time off, I made time to make art every day and at the end of the month, I felt like I had accomplished so much. This month (March 2020) I am participating in my 5th year of daily writing. Each day, I am writing a blog post about the mundane things in my life. I know that I am capable of accomplishing a lot, if I just push out the distractions and set goals. I don’t think other people realize how much time they actually have if they just make a point to try. “to require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do — away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes. Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such work. (You are correct.) Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit. And in one of those perverse little ironies of life, only the pattern itself achieves perfection — a perfect death spiral: you misdirect your work; you stall; you quit.” I am a bit of a perfectionist. I try to say that I am not, because I am okay with some imperfection, but there are instances when I just cannot accept anything that is subpar. And I get disappointed in people when they fall short of my expectations. And I want certain situations to happen the way that I imagine them, and when they don’t I get extremely frustrated. I’m often guilty of pushing people away when they disappoint me because I would rather not have them around if they are going to continually let me down. I do that with my own art making---I land the perfect death spiral. I made very little art the first 10 years of my teaching career because it just wasn’t perfect and I was overwhelmed with the expectations of being the best teacher, wife, friend, etc. I’m getting better though. I’m learning to prioritize better. I’m starting to be more forgiving and that’s the best I can do. I’m also making more work through plein air sessions and experimentation that makes me happy, even though it isn’t ‘for’ something. “Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working…..When you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.” These two quotes didn’t actually go together in the book, but I am combining them here for the sake of brevity. I believe that I do suffer when I am not engaged in any art making. My relationships suffer, my motivation suffers and my soul suffers. When I don’t make time for art, either looking at art OR making art, I get overwhelmed by everything else and I am unhappy. I don’t always realize it at the time, but it happens and it takes a little introspection to come to that conclusion. For 10 years, I hosted an event called Nelliepalooza. Basically, I invited all my scrapbooking friends and several of my artists friends to a local campground for a weekend twice a year. We hired a cook to make all of our meals, slept in bunk beds and spent the entire weekend drinking coffee, and just making stuff. Looking back, I know that I made excuses 90% of the time when I did not make stuff at home because I was ‘saving it’ for Nellipalooza. I would always get a lot done on those weekends, but I also endured a lot of stress to make those weekends happen as I had to be in charge of up to 45 other women and their neediness. I do not do well with needy people. I would get angry and frustrated and stressed. So I quit hosting Nelliepalooza last year. I agree with the second half of the quote that when you commit, “it comes on like blazes.” I was always able to get in the zone at Nelliepalooza. I didn’t have to cook, do laundry, or clean or do any of the things that distract me at home, I ONLY had my art supplies to focus on, so in some ways, I invented a ‘creative bubble’ and I was able to be productive every single time. “An old proverb cautions: if you chase two rabbits, you catch neither.” Basically, they are saying that you cannot be a good teacher AND a good artist. I think this is my main critique of this book. I think this entire section is discouraging a career in a teaching field….this quote specifically implies that you CANNOT be a GOOD teacher and a SUCCESSFUL artist. To some extent, I agree with them. I think it is incredibly hard to be a full time artist and a full time educator and do both really well. Public education just is not designed to support the lifestyle of an artist unless you are willing to let some things go. I think Dustin does a good job balancing his art practice and his teaching practice, probably the best I’ve ever seen. I really admire his dedication: he runs marathons, sets up at art fairs, gets his work into exhibits in KC, sells his work at local galleries, and finds time to take classes---I think I am busy and then I find out that Dustin just did a triathlon over the weekend and I’m like WOW!!! In conclusion, I think overall this is a great book and I’m glad I read it and I probably need to read it every year just for the motivation.
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Mrs. Mitchell
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