For a little while now I've been feeling a bit empty. Part of it is the overarching malaise of living in 2018 America. Part of it is being at a crossroads in life and not knowing which way to turn. Part of it is because it's been 90+ degrees outside for most of the past month. There's not really a great answer to all of it, but it's happening.
But one of the things that I keep thinking about is how I think I'd like to start drawing. Or painting. Or something. I want to make visual art, but I'm completely terrified of it. What's more, I don't think I consider my own artistic pursuits to be "good" enough to actually pursue. I explored this idea a little bit on an Instagram post where I edited a photo, and it has kept me thinking further about this.
With words, I don't have any issues with confidence, and that means I don't second-guess what I said. Even if I say something that pisses people off, I have confidence in the fact that I (most of the time) have measured my words and said what I meant to say. But with visual things, I don't have that. I'm so scared of making a crappy drawing that I can't even put the writing utensil to the paper. I can't beat the judge that is living in my head and heart.
Somehow, even if I don't plan on showing someone the thing that I draw, I'll judge it so harshly that I'll just throw it away before I even "finish" (although it'll never be finished because I'll never be satisfied with what has come out).
Why should I feel this way? Why should art scare me? I understand that expression is, at its core, some type of vulnerability, but I don't understand why one form or another should induce crippling fear when the other feels A-OK. There's a mental block at play, and mental blocks suck.
The other thing about visual art is that it doesn't have to be colloquially "good" to matter. How many times have you been to a modern/contemporary art museum (classical art tends to be more about form or portraits or whatever [in my relatively limited experience, anyway]) and thought "boy...I don't understand what I'm looking at." A lot of times, right? But the person who made it felt good, complete, whole, or satisfied with that piece. There are people who sell their art on Etsy that, when I look at it, I think "boy, that's not what a person looks like and it looks like this was drawn in 10 seconds." But people buy it, and the artist was done with it.
There's value in that certainty and that acceptance of your own limitations, and yet it's something that I haven't quite been able to wrap my head around - in the visual realm anyway.
In some way, it's therapeutic to just put this on paper, even if it's not as therapeutic as putting art on paper. Of course, art is subjective, so maybe I'm one step ahead of myself. In either case, expression, which I've already referred to as vulnerability, is also art.
But one of the things that I keep thinking about is how I think I'd like to start drawing. Or painting. Or something. I want to make visual art, but I'm completely terrified of it. What's more, I don't think I consider my own artistic pursuits to be "good" enough to actually pursue. I explored this idea a little bit on an Instagram post where I edited a photo, and it has kept me thinking further about this.
With words, I don't have any issues with confidence, and that means I don't second-guess what I said. Even if I say something that pisses people off, I have confidence in the fact that I (most of the time) have measured my words and said what I meant to say. But with visual things, I don't have that. I'm so scared of making a crappy drawing that I can't even put the writing utensil to the paper. I can't beat the judge that is living in my head and heart.
Somehow, even if I don't plan on showing someone the thing that I draw, I'll judge it so harshly that I'll just throw it away before I even "finish" (although it'll never be finished because I'll never be satisfied with what has come out).
Why should I feel this way? Why should art scare me? I understand that expression is, at its core, some type of vulnerability, but I don't understand why one form or another should induce crippling fear when the other feels A-OK. There's a mental block at play, and mental blocks suck.
The other thing about visual art is that it doesn't have to be colloquially "good" to matter. How many times have you been to a modern/contemporary art museum (classical art tends to be more about form or portraits or whatever [in my relatively limited experience, anyway]) and thought "boy...I don't understand what I'm looking at." A lot of times, right? But the person who made it felt good, complete, whole, or satisfied with that piece. There are people who sell their art on Etsy that, when I look at it, I think "boy, that's not what a person looks like and it looks like this was drawn in 10 seconds." But people buy it, and the artist was done with it.
There's value in that certainty and that acceptance of your own limitations, and yet it's something that I haven't quite been able to wrap my head around - in the visual realm anyway.
In some way, it's therapeutic to just put this on paper, even if it's not as therapeutic as putting art on paper. Of course, art is subjective, so maybe I'm one step ahead of myself. In either case, expression, which I've already referred to as vulnerability, is also art.
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