[Video discussion with artists on one of my fireside chat calls a few years ago]

Are You Worried About Creating A Masterpiece Every Time You Paint?

This discussion is about the topic of Perfectionism and Fear. Do these problems sound familiar?

An artist wrote to me that she has “A problem completing work that I like or that I can’t resolve.” She said she has difficulty committing to moves and marks and feels as if she’s working on the same things over and over and getting tired and discouraged in the process.

She added: “I can get a bit obsessed with single pieces.”

Do You Feel Stuck, Not Knowing What To Do Next In Your Paintings?

Do you worry about the outcome?

Race to the finish?

Get caught up trying to create a masterpiece, only to be stymied by fear and self-doubt?

Get into the Mindset of ‘What if?’

Instead of worrying about the finish, what if you cultivated an attitude of not knowing? Of experimentation? Of not worrying about the finish, but being in flow and ease in the process?

What if you created more starts, fewer finishes?

The Adjacent Possible Takes You Somewhere New

What we’re talking about is accessing The Adjacent Possible, of allowing your move, your brushstroke, your marks to lead you into the adjacent possibility, a possibility that wouldn’t have existed if you didn’t make that mark, that brushstroke, that move.

We’re talking about making room for Surprise.

Don’t we want our art to surprise us? 

This happens by getting out of the way and stepping into the terra incognita, the unknown territory, the place where new work emerges from the liminal, the nascent, the first step.

Zero To One, just start.

How Do We Open Creative Channels?

There are infinite ways to approach this attitude of experimentation and a great way is to Play.

Play around with the 6 Maquette Exercise™, Play with Flux, Play with Stream-of-Consciousness Mark Making and Play with Working in a Series, to name a few.

Let some paintings be very raw in your series, then take some further with more marks and layers, and take some even further with even more marks and layers.

The Importance Of Your Mindset, Your Inner Landscape

Notice how you feel as you create. Can you hold this as experimentation?

Notice the words you say to yourself. I like to remind myself, “These are experimental studies, exploratory works”.

The magic doesn’t happen when you try too hard.

Cultivate An Attitude Of Allowing

Trying too hard sucks the joy out of creating and makes your art look like your’e struggling and thinking too much.

Yes, there is thinking involved, but we tend to overthink before we’ve allowed the spontaneous gestures to emerge.

Painting is a dance, a dance of the spontaneous and the considered.

The question is, Can you let go and play?’ 

If so, this is the way to creating your deepest, most authentic art.

Can you allow “ugly paintings” to emerge? I submit to you that “ugly paintings” are very important, but that’s another conversation : )

 

From my studio to yours,

Nancy

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