When I was 11 it was my legs, in my teens it was my freckles, my boobs – or lack of, my teeth, certain aspects of my parents, our religion and the family car. In my 20’s still the boob thing, lack of career direction and my inability to hook a decent man. My 30’s saw the concern about the man intensify.. In my 40’s it was a general lack of organisation, uncontrollable young children – (yes, I managed to find myself a man.) My 50’s has been all about my internal thermometer and sleep – both far too erratic. What has all this got to do with Abstract Painting?
I have just listed all, well perhaps many of the aspects of myself or my life that I have been critical of over the last 40 years. Yes, folks this week I am talking about self-criticism and how to avoid buckling under its laser focus while we chase our creative dreams.
Detail of painting in progress
When I was 11, my father (who was the loveliest man) light-heartedly announced to a small gathering outside church on Sunday that it was my birthday and that I was “Legs-11”. Conscious of my skinny, white legs, instead of beaming a proud birthday smile I shrunk, probably turned bright red and kept my eyes fixed on the ground in front of me. I would have gladly sunken into that ground to avoid any attention to my pins. I was mortified.
Happily, 40 years on I’m now grateful for those legs – their not bad and they do a marvelous job of keeping me upright, taking me places and they don’t have ANY varicose veins!! If only my 11 year old self could have predicted the value in that.
When we criticise ourselves we really don’t do ourselves any favours. However, we must be a critic at times when we analyse our artwork if we want to progress. How do we learn to be analytical without paralyzing our creative muscle?
We have to keep sight of the bigger picture and BE KIND. This is SO important if we are to feel the freedom and be courageous in our creativity. We simply can’t take risks and push ourselves out of our comfort zone if we are constantly highlighting short-comings and seeking to hide from our inadequate, but true self.
When I was focussed on my freckles, my lack of curves and all my other short-comings I was seeing myself as the FINAL PRODUCT. This is me and that’s it. End of story. If I had seen myself through a different lens my conclusion might have been different and more empowering.
I needed to view myself as a work in progress and see the entire picture of myself instead of honing in on parts through a macro-lens. I would have seen a person with potential and the ability to learn and improve. All I needed was to make a decision to focus on the areas that needed improvement in order to become the person I wanted to be (if only I had known what that was).
Admittedly, there isn’t much you can do about genetics and all you inherit in your DNA. But freckles aside, and looking big picture, there were aspects of my blueprint that I could be happy about, and there were definitely areas that I could improve on and realise some potential. And that’s all we need to know isn’t it? That what we see isn’t the final version. We want to look into the future and see that improved self.
So how do we apply this mindset to our creative endeavours. When we look at our work and feel that sinking dread that ‘Ugh, this really isn’t very good at all.” We must ask ourselves – is that the final piece that is going to define my life? Answer hopefully is NO. This is just part of a life-long journey, and the path can only get easier with every bad painting we do if we learn from them.
BIG PICTURE – the more you practice the better you get. So more useful questions to ask are:
1. What don’t I like about the work – isolate only a couple of aspects, be a little forgiving.
2. What DO I like about the work? You MUST find something!!
3. Focus on the areas to improve by experimenting, looking at the work of others and learning from those who are further down the path than yourself. Just focus on improving in that area of your work and don’t try and finish anything. Spend time just experimenting and applying yourself to improving in the area you identified. Very soon, you will see improvement and probably discover some other gems along the way.
While you are head down and focusing on improving your artwork tell yourself that you are moving in the right direction. Congratulate yourself on your ability to identify your next steps, your patience, forbearance and ambition to find your best self. You are EXACTLY where you are supposed to be.
With this abundance of self-love you will take risks, be process focused rather than results focused and you will free yourself up to learn and grow. Then just watch your work get REEALLY GOOD!! (Although there will always be areas you want to improve – remember, this is a lifelong journey).
Also, the only comparison you should make is between your work now and your previous work. Comparing yourself with others is futile, they are them and you are you. You are not designed to make their work.
This is a journey not to be taken alone so come and join me and a growing community of ambitious and generous artists in THE UPBEAT ARTISTS GROUP.
If you have identified areas of your artwork that you need help with I have two courses available. stARTs is a course where I lead you through the process of making 5 different abstract paintings. I teach a process-focused method of making Art which takes the anxiety out of creating results. Great results are the bi-product as you learn a heap of new techniques with acrylic paint, collage and mixed-media.
My other course is Fix & Finish where I teach you how to get unstuck in your work, find your style and become a confident Artist producing work YOU love.